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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24668677">Don't Look The Other Way</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Parker_Haven_Wuornos/pseuds/Parker_Haven_Wuornos'>Parker_Haven_Wuornos</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Partners in Crime [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Haven (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Criminals, Friends to Lovers to Enemies, M/M, Not Canon Compliant but Canon Should Have Complied With This, POV Multiple, Partners in Crime, Pre-Canon, Returning Home, Smuggling, Trans Male Character</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 05:33:53</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>33,952</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24668677</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Parker_Haven_Wuornos/pseuds/Parker_Haven_Wuornos</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i> Let me ask you something, Nate. Does she know about the things you've done?</i>
</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Duke Crocker/Nathan Wuornos</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Partners in Crime [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1784068</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>41</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>28</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Somewhere out of reach</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Welcome to the fic I've been working on for the last month. As usual, I have some issues with canon so I am writing ANOTHER Duke/Nathan pre-canon story. This is the one I've always meant to write. I hope you like it and if you do be sure to tell me.<br/>Note: In this chapter I write a character speaking Scots: it's a dialect, not a phonetically written accent. Having said that, it's been a while since I've been to Scotland, and I may have made some grammatical or spelling errors. My apologies if so.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Haven smelled exactly the same. If someone had blindfolded him and waved a perfume of rotting fish, brine, pine trees, and rainwater under his nose at any point in his life, Duke would have been able to say “that’s the smell of the Haven docks” in an instant.</p><p>For as long as Duke had been yearning for change, for something different—something <em>more</em>—at every turn, there was something to be said for familiarity. He smiled as he left the Rouge behind him and went further into the activities of the docks. People nodded at him, some tight lipped and suspicious of the stranger, others recognizing him and offering a friendly wave. As soon as he’d passed, the ones who’d waved would lean in towards the suspicious ones and say, “That’s Simon Crocker’s boy.” The oldest and crustiest of the fishermen, who always knew the most gossip and remembered it best, would add some misdeed from his childhood or one of his father’s crimes for color.</p><p>For once, Duke wouldn’t let thoughts of his father ruin his day. As much as he enjoyed being on open water, it was always something of a relief to be on solid ground. After everything, he needed a little solid ground.</p><p>And god, Haven was solid. He looked around and saw people he was sure he recognized, some he could even name, people his father had known and pissed off, or people who’d smiled sympathetically at him. Some of them were not personally familiar, but they were archetypes of familiar people, and that was nearly the same thing. Duke walked past an old lady griping loudly about a teenager that had come by on a skateboard to a tall man who was nodding patiently. He hurried by lest he get dragged into the conversation.</p><p>“Duke?”</p><p>Duke turned around at the sound of his name and took a good look at the tall man he’d just brushed by.</p><p><em>Holy shit</em>. “Nathan?”</p><p>Leaving the old woman, Nathan approached him, smiling. “You almost didn’t recognize me.” He sounded very pleased about it.</p><p>Duke nodded. “You got… taller.” It wasn’t exactly what he’d wanted to say, but he wasn’t sure how to say what he meant. Nathan had gotten taller, but he’d also gotten much… more. He was, for lack of a better way to explain it, more <em>Nathan. </em></p><p>Nathan’s smile widened. “You’re back in town.” There was an unasked question there, which told Duke that not everything about Nathan had changed.</p><p>“Yeah, I needed some time to clear my head.” At Nathan’s confused look, Duke shrugged. “Bad breakup,” He explained, not untruthfully.</p><p>Nathan nodded sympathetically, and Duke wondered when was the last time he’d had a breakup, then wondered why it mattered.</p><p>“You’re still in town,” Duke said after a moment.</p><p>Nathan gave him an almost-guilty half shrug. “Yeah. It’s home, you know how it is.”</p><p>“Not really.”</p><p>Nathan flinched a little, shifting his stance further away from Duke—how had they ended up standing so close?—and the motion moved his jacket, shifting it away from his hips so that his badge glinted in the sunlight.</p><p>Oh. Oh no.</p><p>All of a sudden, Duke’s loathing for this town, as familiar as the town itself, surged up in him. He hated this cursed place, hated everything associated with it. Hated every damn thing that had happened and worked together to create a universe in which Nathan Wuornos was a cop.</p><p>“That’s new,” Duke said, and even he heard the thinly veiled bitterness in his voice.</p><p>Glancing down at his badge, Nathan at least had the decency to look abashed. “Yeah. It’s a job.”</p><p>But it wasn’t just a job. Not to Duke. Not when there was a non-zero chance that they could end up sitting on opposite side of an interrogation table.</p><p>“Probably boring around here,” Duke said, forcing a smile to smooth over his face. <em>Be casual, be calm. You’ve got nothing to hide. </em></p><p>He hated that he was acting with Nathan the way he acted with cops. Hated that from here on out, that was how he would have to treat Nathan. And then he hated that he had already been thinking about spending more time with Nathan.</p><p><em>You don’t hang out with cops! </em>Duke reminded himself, something he’d never even had to think before. It was a given fact that he couldn’t have law enforcement hanging around too close.</p><p>Especially not now.</p><p>Nathan was nodding again. “Not much happens here. Cats in trees, that sort of thing.”</p><p>“Old ladies vs teenagers?” Duke asked, gesturing towards the old woman Nathan had left, who was waiting impatiently behind them.</p><p>Nathan rolled his eyes skyward. “I’ll be right back.”</p><p>“I’ve got to get going anyhow,” Duke said, even though he had no plans and nowhere to go.</p><p>“Right,” Nathan said, looking a little hurt.</p><p>Duke had forgotten how sensitive he was, how easy it was to make him feel brushed off.</p><p>“It was good to see you, Duke,” He said, and Duke ached a little at how obvious it was that he meant it.</p><p>He thought of himself, all armor and performance, talking like he was on a con even when he wasn’t. If he was an unbreakable shell then Nathan was a raw nerve, Duke couldn’t imagine living like that.</p><p>“You too, Nate.”</p><p>Nathan gave him one last sad, horizon-blue stare and then his face shifted and hardened as he turned back into the cop to finish hearing the old lady out.</p><p>That look was so familiar, shaking up old aches and wants Duke had thought he’d left behind twenty years ago.  </p><p><em>Don’t bury things at sea,</em> his father had said once, a rare moment of drunken melancholy he shared with his son. <em>The tide always brings them in someday</em>.</p><p>It was the last thing he’d thought would resurface when he got back to Haven, this feeling, but he let it settle on his shoulders like a well-worn shirt. Eventually, he would forget it was there.</p><p>He had to. He had a mission while he was in Haven and Detective Wuornos—Duke had to start thinking of him like that, had to separate him from <em>Nathan</em>—could not be a part of it. Even if maybe it would have been nice to talk to Nathan, to reforge some of their old bonds, but Duke had to be making new connections with people who were more… on his level.</p><p>He needed a business partner, soon. Too many of his contacts had been Evi’s, too many of his people were really hers. He needed to go back to his roots, the very first jobs he’d run, to rebuild everything he’d lost to her.</p><p>Duke went into town and wandered. He didn’t need anything aside from to be seen and discussed a little. There was no better way to get in touch with old contacts than to be gossiped about until they got in touch with him, and he needed those old contacts.</p><p>Deciding that the whole day might as well not be a waste, Duke went to the Haven farmer’s market, realizing that for the first time he intended to actually pay for whatever he found there. As a kid, he’d moved easily through the crowd, snagging fruits and vegetables off tables while adults were haggling.</p><p>He smiled, remembering that he’d learned to cook with those stolen goods, had damn near burned the house down and had to do a lot of lying when the fire department showed up and wondered why he was cooking for himself and where his father was. He’d spent the rest of the week at Nathan’s house while he waited for the smoke smell to leave his house and for his father to get back from the job.</p><p>Still, he’d been back the next week for more because he’d wanted to try again.</p><p>Like the rest of Haven, the farmer’s market was exactly the same. He went right to Angus’s stall and started to look around. He had to admit that it was nice to be looking at fresh produce; he’d recently been on a long stretch at sea where canned and preserved foods were all that was practical.</p><p>Whether it was entirely by choice or not, there were advantages to, not putting down roots—because Duke had no plans to do that ever, but especially not in Haven—but staying in place for a while.</p><p>He finished selecting what he’d need for dinners for the next few days and handed them to Angus, who smiled warmly at him.</p><p>“Welcome back! Where hae ye been?” Without waiting for an answer, Angus grabbed another few items and tossed them into Duke’s bag without ringing them up. “A few for auld time’s sake, yea?”</p><p>Duke frowned. “What?”</p><p>Angus barked a loud laugh. “Did ye think I didnae ken that you were pinching my goods for half yer life?”</p><p>Duke opened his mouth to protest, but shut it again, surprised by the wave of warmth that passed through him. So much for being self-sufficient, but it was oddly nice to know that, in this distant way, Angus had been looking out for him.</p><p>“Thanks,” He said, and meant it.</p><p>He wandered to other stalls, bought some fancy handmade soap because the woman selling it flirted with him in Russian, which was novel enough that she’d earned a sale. As he was about to leave, someone called out his name and he turned, bracing himself to see Nathan again.</p><p>But it was someone much less stressful who was smiling and jogging clumsily towards him, his arms full of bags of fresh seafood from Larry Kemmer’s truck.</p><p>“Duke!” Bill called again. “When did you get back in town?”</p><p>Duke smiled. “Hour ago, give or take?”</p><p>“Why didn’t you call, say you were coming? Geoff would have come up to see you—”</p><p>“It’s alright, Bill,” Duke said. “I’ll be around a while.”</p><p>Though his smile didn’t flicker, Bill rolled his eyes. “That’s what you said last time.”</p><p>“I stayed four whole days!” Duke said, tossing his hands up defensively. He’d had to leave suddenly for a job about a year ago, not that he’d really been planning to stay back then.</p><p>This time, however, was different. “I really mean it. I’m here for a few months at least.”<br/>
Or however much time it took for the Argentina mess to blow over, but Bill didn’t need to know about that.</p><p>“That’s great,” Bill said. “There’s someone I’d really like for you to meet.”</p><p>“Really?” Duke asked, curious. Bill was a naturally upbeat guy, but Duke didn’t think he’d seen him this giddy since they were kids. “Who’s that?”</p><p>“Meg,” He said, taking a breath Duke could tell was just for the drama. “My <em>fiancé</em>.”</p><p>Duke’s jaw dropped, but he slapped his friend on the back. “Congratulations, how long’s that been going on?”</p><p>“We met last year, been engaged a couple months. I’m glad you’re back, I wasn’t sure how to get you an invitation, but since you’re here, you should be in it!”</p><p>As a rule, Duke didn’t particularly like weddings. He hardly remembered his own, aside from the fact that it had happened in a drunken rush, on a Mexican beach after a job. But this was Bill, excitable, kind Bill who would be crushed if Duke said no.</p><p>“Wow, Bill… that’s… thanks. I’d be honored.”</p><p>Bill was beaming, which made the little ache in Duke’s chest ease slightly. “Hey! Dinner, Saturday night; you can meet Meg. She’ll be thrilled I found another groomsman; she’s been begging me for weeks so she can have both her sisters.”</p><p>Duke forced a smile. He couldn’t believe he’d agreed to this and he was already regretting it. Did he even own a suit? He was pretty sure Evi still had it, which only reminded him of yet another reason he didn’t want to go to a wedding.</p><p><em>But it’s Bill, </em>Duke reminded himself. He would do this for Bill.</p><p>“I wish I could hang out,” Bill said, “But I have to get this back to the restaurant.”</p><p>“Hey, maybe I’ll swing by for a bite later,” Duke said impulsively and with immediate regret, but yet again, Bill’s enthusiasm made up for it.<br/>
“That would be great! Bring some friends, if you can. Things… haven’t been great since Mom and Dad…” He shrugged.</p><p>“I’m sorry,” Duke said sincerely. Bill had never been overly interested in owning his parents’ restaurant, but his brother, Geoff, refused to leave his fancy job at some overpriced steakhouse in New York to help, so it fell to Bill, who did his best.</p><p>Bill shrugged. “I uh, gotta go. See you later?”<br/>
“Yeah, and dinner Saturday, right?”</p><p>His sadness evaporating like clouds, Bill beamed. “Yes! Meg’s going to be so excited, she’s heard—”</p><p>“Oh, god, I don’t want to know what she’s heard.”</p><p>Bill laughed significantly harder than the joke warranted, and then said his goodbyes, practically skipping away from the market.</p><p>Duke found that the smile was still a little stuck on his face as he left the market and wandered further into town. He sped past the police station, not wanting to look at it and picture Nathan’s desk in there. He wondered how Nathan could bear working so close to his father.</p><p>Simon Crocker was dead and Duke had still needed to put oceans and continents between them before he felt strong enough to come back to this town.</p><p>He couldn’t decide if Nathan’s way was another kind of strength, or a weakness he pitied.</p><p>Without especially intending to, Duke found himself on a tour of places he’d spent time as a kid. He wandered past the corner store his father had sent him to for beer or cigarettes, where the man running it had given Duke pitying looks, and had later never bothered carding him.</p><p>He saw the park where he and Nathan—why did it always have to come back to Nathan?—had played baseball as kids. He wondered if their coach, a shockingly dedicated and overworked college student, still lived in Haven.</p><p>The Haven Public Library looked older and smaller than Duke remembered it, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t happy to see it. He had spent hours—entire days sometimes—in there, more for the central heating than anything else. It was there that Pam Seligson had showed him maps of the world and guides on how to read them, which had led him to star charts and old navigational guides, and copies of captains’ logs. When he’d expressed interest, she’d eagerly shown him beginner’s books about languages, and found the intermediate and advanced ones when he’d gotten through them.</p><p>Mrs. Seligson had also been the one to browbeat the principal when he’d tried to have Duke expelled. Duke would have happily never gone back to school, but he’d let her fight that battle because he’d never seen anyone yell at the principal, or had anyone tell him that he had rights. He’d assumed that kids didn’t have those, that they were a gift you received for your eighteenth birthday, like cigarettes.</p><p>As if summoned by his memory, Mrs. Seligson walked out of the library, tottering under the weight of a large plastic bin and a stack of books, balanced precariously in her thin arms.</p><p>Duke jogged over to her and, without waiting for permission, relieved her of her burden, which was impressively heavy for someone who had to be in her seventies.</p><p>“Now, you listen,” Mrs. Seligson started, rounding on Duke. She stopped, assessing him for a moment. “Duke Crocker. I never thought I’d see you back here.” He couldn’t tell if she was pleased or not as she assessed him with sharp eyes.</p><p>He wasn’t sure how to respond to that; he hadn’t expected to see her again either.</p><p>Whatever conclusion she came to after staring at him for a while seemed to satisfy her. “Help me get those to my car.”</p><p>“What is all this stuff?” Duke asked, shifting and trying to look at the books. He caught sight of <em>The Color Purple </em>and <em>1864</em> at the top of the piles.</p><p>“Our Eastern branch had a vandalism problem,” She said, her eyes flashing. “I’m going to be giving a presentation on the Banned Books Project and the importance of reading challenging material.” Her eyes slid sideways to him. “I seem to remember you being very fond of banned books as a child.”</p><p>Duke smiled; remembering the time she’d told him, oh so casually, about a book that the Rev and his people had demanded she remove from the shelves, because they didn’t like what it said about religion.</p><p>“I’ll check it out,” He’d said, “And hide it for you.”</p><p>Mrs. Seligson, he remembered, had beamed.</p><p>He hadn’t understood much of what happened in <em>Slaughterhouse Five, </em>but he’d loved the thrill of reading something adults didn’t want him to, and he still had a copy in the shelves on the Rouge. He smiled, remembering telling Nathan about the book, and that the Rev didn’t want people to read it, and how he’d checked it out before Mrs. Seligson could even put it back.</p><p>Bill and Geoff had done it next, and when the Rev had asked if she’d removed it from the shelves like he’d asked, she’d been able to honestly say that it had been out of the library for weeks.  </p><p>“Still am,” He said.</p><p>“Well I have plenty you might like. Come see me sometime and I’ll give you some recommendations.”</p><p>Duke didn’t tell her that he didn’t need an adult to help him pick out books anymore. Truthfully, he thought it was nice that she might remember his taste from back then well enough to give him something he’d like. It was an odd, and definitely unconsidered benefit to being back, being around people he’d known for a long time.</p><p>When they’d reached her car and he’d put everything in the trunk for her, she turned, smiling and giving him a perfunctory, but warm hug. “Welcome home, Duke.”</p>
<hr/><p>Nathan had watched Duke walk away with reluctance, feeling the same juvenile urge to run after him he’d always had to fight when he saw Duke cutting class. But Nathan had a job to do and chasing Duke couldn’t be a part of it.</p><p>“They were going far too fast; they might have taken my legs out from under me if I hadn’t been so quick!” Mrs. Gilbert had been expressing her deep annoyance about teenagers with skateboards—a thing over which Nathan had little control because it wasn’t a crime—for over fifteen minutes.</p><p>“I’m glad you weren’t hurt,” Nathan said, trying very hard to mean it. “If we find out who the kids were, I’ll be sure to call their parents.”</p><p>He didn’t mean that. He was inclined to let kids have fun, and from what he’d heard from Mrs. Gilbert, they hadn’t been causing any trouble, just skating around. He didn’t want to risk calling parents and getting kids who hadn’t done anything wrong into trouble.</p><p>Mrs. Gilbert finally—<em>finally</em>—allowed him to go, and Nathan drove back to the station feeling restless. He should be thinking about work. He had plenty of work to think about. There was a break-in at the hardware store, and he didn’t have any leads. Someone had smashed up a family’s car with what looked like a crowbar.</p><p>But all Nathan could think about was Duke.</p><p>Duke was back.</p><p>Duke was here, in Haven, and he had almost seemed happy to see Nathan. Ten years without so much as a phone call, but Duke Crocker was in Haven and he had seen Nathan and <em>smiled. </em></p><p>Nathan wanted to believe that it wasn’t just a polite smile, that he’d really been happy, not that it mattered. Nathan had seen the way that smile had gone out, snuffed like a candle as soon as he’d seen Nathan’s badge.</p><p>That didn’t bode well for a number of reasons.</p><p>The fact that whatever friendship they might have had was already doomed was a low ache in Nathan’s gut as he went to his office. He’d do some paperwork, mindless shit to keep him from thinking about Duke.</p><p>It wasn’t fair. He’d seen Duke for all of five minutes, and Nathan was ready to go crashing after him the way he always had when they were kids.</p><p>“Nathan!”</p><p>He flinched, looking up and feeling guilty, like somehow his father would know who he’d been thinking about. “Uh, yeah?”</p><p>A muscle ticked in the chief’s jaw. <em>Wrong answer, Nathan. </em></p><p>“Yes, sir?” Nathan said, more clearly.</p><p>“What happened at the docks?”</p><p>
  <em>How the hell—</em>
</p><p>“Florence Gilbert called me and said you didn’t help her with a complaint?”</p><p>Nathan let out a breath. “Some kids rode by on skateboards. It wasn’t a crime.”</p><p>“Well, who were they?”</p><p>He couldn’t believe his father was making this into a problem. “I don’t know. By the time I got there they were gone, and,” He repeated, “They didn’t do anything wrong.”</p><p>The chief seemed inclined to disagree, but he changed the subject instead. “Where are you on the break-in?”</p><p>“Nowhere,” Nathan admitted. “Pritch’s cameras are fakes and no one saw anything. They took a couple hundred in cash out of the register.”</p><p>“How’d he get in the register?”</p><p>“Pried it open with a screwdriver,” Nathan said. “It was an old model, easy to break.”</p><p>The chief shook his head, disappointed. “Need you to do better than that, Nathan.”</p><p>Nathan frowned, holding back excuse after excuse. He didn’t want to get defensive, didn’t want his father to know that it hurt that he assumed Nathan wasn’t doing everything he could.</p><p>“I’ll follow up with the neighbors,” Nathan said reluctantly, knowing it wouldn’t do any good.</p><p>His father’s face creased even more. “No. You’re off this one. I’ll talk to Mr. Pritchard myself.”</p><p>It was a slap in the face. Hell, a slap might have been better than this easy dismissal. Without saying so—without needing to—his father had told him that Nathan wasn’t good enough for real crime and should stick to complaining old ladies.</p><p>As soon as his father had left, the same disappointed but unsurprised frown on his face, Nathan turned to his computer. He closed out of his cold case file, where he kept tabs for every case Haven PD had ever failed to solve, just in case he could see something they hadn’t, and looked instead for more recent crimes.</p><p>He searched Duke’s name.</p><p>Duke had outstanding warrants in a couple cities, not for anything very serious. The fingerprints of a successful smuggling operation were all over him, but Nathan doubted there would be enough evidence to put him in jail.</p><p>Duke had always been smart.</p><p>Nathan knew he shouldn’t be doing this, shouldn’t be background checking Duke instead of just trying to ask him what he’d been up to the past few years. Especially considering the way Duke had closed off, iron gates shutting behind his eyes as soon as he’d seen the stupid badge. If Nathan tried to catch up, tried to get to know him again, Duke would think it was some kind of sting. There was no way to prove that Nathan only wanted what he’d always wanted.</p><p>Nathan closed the tab, chewing on his shame. After a minute, he forced all those thoughts away as hard as he could, Nathan buried himself in paperwork. For a town with such a low crime rate, he still managed to have a shocking amount of forms that needed to be filled out, detailing where he’d been and why and what he’d done.</p><p>Nearly two hours had passed when his father reentered the office, not bothering to knock—he never did—with a face like a thunderstorm. “You didn’t ask if Pritch had enemies.”</p><p>“What?” Nathan said, running back through everything he’d discussed with Mr. Pritchard at the hardware store.</p><p>“You didn’t ask if Pritch had enemies,” His father repeated. “And he did. Some kid he wouldn’t hire because he refused a drug test threatened him. We found the money in his car.”</p><p>Nathan felt an unexpected stab of sympathy for the kid, who hadn’t even spent the stolen money. “It didn’t—” Nathan started, ready to explain that it hadn’t occurred to him to think that Lionel Pritchard, the seventy-year-old owner of a hardware store had any enemies.</p><p>“You missed the most obvious question,” His father said, and Nathan didn’t want to label the disgust in his tone, wanted to pretend it was just another lecture, even if it didn’t feel like one. “You missed what was right in front of you.”</p><p>Those were some of his father’s favorite words. Even when Nathan had been a kid, his father had made time to tell him that he always had his head in the clouds, and he missed what was in front of him.</p><p>“He’s—” Again, Nathan tried to explain, but his father put up a hand, silencing him.</p><p>“Don’t. I don’t want to hear it.”</p><p>His father left, and Nathan dropped his head to his desk, letting the pain and the solid feel of it under his forehead ground him.</p><p>He waited, scratching through paperwork—all he was good for, apparently—until his shift was finally over and he could go home.</p><p>The drive was good, centering, but his house was just as oppressive as the station had been. It was damp and smelled like mold. It needed work; the last storm had done a number on it, and new insulation would do wonders, but he hadn’t budgeted for those kinds of repairs.</p><p>Why, he wondered, had he bought a house in Haven when he could have been a cop anywhere, when he could have had an apartment in Boston or Bangor where a super would take care of all this shit.</p><p>He also realized that with those kinds of repairs, he’d probably need to move out for a few days, and he couldn’t stomach the idea of staying with the chief, even for that long. There was a couch in his office, which would be agonizing but possible to crash on for a few days.</p><p>It didn’t even occur to him to ask his friends; he didn’t have any friends like that.</p><p>Trying to ignore the smell, Nathan went to his kitchen, thinking about dinner and a beer and finding a movie. His fridge, however, contained only condiments and a wilted and moldering head of lettuce, which didn’t hold up to even his low standards.</p><p>Dejected, he got back into his truck and sat in the driveway for several long minutes, thinking about the places he could stand going to in his current mood.</p><p>The scupper was out; it was just as foul-smelling as his house, and the food was garbage. Rosemary’s was already closed, and he didn’t think he could bear the crowds at the more touristy places. That left Mac’s, which didn’t boast excellent food, but at least there weren’t many people in there, and Nathan still had something of a soft spot for Bill McShaw, who had been a good friend of Duke’s, and thus a satellite friend of Nathan’s for much of their childhood.</p><p>It was, predictably quiet when Nathan arrived, and Bill smiled at him from the bar while he cleaned glasses. Not wanting to take up a whole table when he was alone, Nathan took a seat on a cracked pleather stool and examined the menu, which was mostly ‘pick a sea creature and we’ll put it in the fryer’.</p><p>“Can I get you something to drink?” Bill asked, setting the glass down.</p><p>Nathan gestured vaguely. “Whatever’s on tap.”</p><p>There were four beers on tap, but Bill seemed to realize that Nathan was not going to make specific requests, and he just poured one of them and handed it over.</p><p>“How’ve you been?” Bill asked. He was so genuine, surprising Nathan with the fact that he clearly actually wanted to know.</p><p>But Nathan didn’t have a good answer. He lifted one shoulder, letting his apathy rule him.</p><p>Bill didn’t seem to notice Nathan’s bad mood. “Have you heard that Duke’s back in town?”</p><p>It was hard to remain sour in the face of Bill’s giddiness. Clearly he thought he’d be giving Nathan good news, but it only served to remind him of what he couldn’t have.</p><p>“Yeah, we ran into each other on the docks earlier,” Nathan said.</p><p>Bill’s smile twitched and fell. “He said he might come by tonight.” He sounded like he wanted to believe it was a good thing, but he wasn’t quite sure.</p><p>Nathan wasn’t sure it was a good thing either. He wanted to see Duke. He really wanted to see him, but everything would be complicated, everything would be awkward.</p><p>He would look at Duke, easy and relaxed like he always was, and remember him sitting in the passenger seat of the bronco, back when it had been new to Nathan—the bronco had never actually been new—and they had driven up to King’s point to stare at the sky and talk about everywhere they wanted to go.</p><p><em>Duke went there, </em>Nathan thought with an ache. <em>He really went. </em></p><p>And Nathan knew he wouldn’t get to see those places, and even if he did, he doubted it would be the same to see them without Duke. He had never dreamed of traveling without Duke, had no inclination to leave Haven unless it was with him.</p><p>But when the time had come, when he’d had the chance to leave and not come back, Nathan had chosen to stay.</p><p>Maybe that was why Duke hadn’t called.</p><p>“It’d be good to see him,” Nathan told Bill, realizing that he meant it as the words were forming. “We didn’t get to talk earlier.”</p><p>It was hard to admit, but Nathan wanted to hear about all the adventures he’d missed, wanted to hear about the wild things Duke had seen and done while he was chasing the sun across the world.</p><p>He took a long sip of beer, surprised to find that it wasn’t the usual watery bullshit that the tourist bars served. Nathan was saved from needing to comment on this—thus opening a real conversation with Bill—when another customer walked in.</p><p>He wasn’t disappointed when he realized it wasn’t Duke, because he hadn’t been expecting it to be Duke, but he did take another sip of his beer, realizing with some surprise that he’d downed nearly half of it and hadn’t even ordered food yet. It wasn’t like him.</p><p>None of this was like him. Going out to eat alone and drinking on a weeknight were not usually a part of his schedule, but he was tangled up and frustrated. His normal wasn’t working for him.</p><p>His normal had put him under his father’s microscope, and landed him on his bad side, which would haunt him for the rest of the week, if not the month.</p><p>Haven had so little crime, that even a break-in at Mr. Pritchard’s understocked and overpriced hardware store was a big deal. Nathan had failed at the only case he’d have to solve for the next several weeks.</p><p>“Probably fail the next one too,” He muttered into his now nearly empty beer.</p><p>“Want another?” Bill offered, returning from the couple he’d just sat at a booth near the window.</p><p>Nathan looked at the beer, thought about the fact that another would get him close to buzzed. “Yes.”</p><p>After a moment of savoring his bad decision, he ordered food, because he was being irresponsible, but he hadn’t reached reckless yet.</p><p>“It’s good stuff,” Bill said, setting another pint in front of him. “Local place up near Castle Rock run by a couple guys I knew in college. They like seeing how high they can get the ABV.”</p><p>That certainly explained why Nathan was feeling one beer. “Really.”</p><p>Bill shrugged. “You looked like you needed it.” After a sheepish moment he admitted, “And it’s the most expensive we have on draft.”</p><p>That actually made Nathan almost smile, and he huffed out a small laugh. “Fair.” He took a sip. “It’s good,” He told Bill, who seemed to be waiting for some kind of approval.</p><p>“You don’t come around often,” Bill said.</p><p>“Busy.”</p><p>“Yeah, lot of that going around these days,” Bill said, and then he shifted down the bar with the easy experience of someone who could tell when their customer wasn’t chatty.</p><p>Nathan slowed down his drinking, resolving to wait until his food had arrived in an effort to mitigate the hangover and an even worse day at work than the one he’d just finished.</p><p>He got his food and ate disinterestedly, which was really the only way to eat the food at Mac’s, but he was all approval when Bill asked him how it was, just like everyone who still ate here, more as a favor to Bill and his parents’ memory than because it was any good.</p><p>“Get you anything else?” Bill asked, taking Nathan’s plate.</p><p>Nathan had opened his mouth to ask for his check so he could finally go home and sleep, ending this day for good, when the door swung open and Duke walked in.</p><p>“I’ll have another beer,” Nathan said.</p><p>Duke looked at him, and even though there were a smattering of people around, he was the only person Nathan saw. It had been like that in high school too, just something about Duke that made a room seem empty, no matter how crowded.</p><p>“Nathan,” He said, not quite a greeting, not quite a <em>good to see you</em>.</p><p>“Duke,” Nathan said, trying to mimic Duke. It came out less funny than he’d have liked, but Duke laughed anyway and took a seat next to him.</p><p>“I’ll have whatever that was,” Duke said, gesturing to Nathan’s empty glass.</p><p>They were silent for a minute. Nathan waited for Duke to say something, and Duke seemed to be waiting for Nathan to say something.</p><p>“How was your first day back?” Nathan finally said, before it got too awkward.</p><p>“Good,” Duke said, and didn’t elaborate.</p><p>Bill brought their beers, and was about to say something when one of the tables waved him over. Looking as irritated as he ever did, Bill left them to take care of his other customers.</p><p>Nathan took a long drink. “What were you up to.”</p><p>“Seeing some old friends,” Duke said. “Went to the farmer’s market.”</p><p>Nathan smiled; Duke had always liked hanging around there.  </p><p>“You?” Duke asked, taking a drink that didn’t quite match the ones Nathan had been taking. Duke was on his guard, and that stung more than Nathan wanted to admit.</p><p>“Fucked up at work,” he admitted, then wished he hadn’t mentioned work when he saw the gates slam shut behind Duke’s eyes.</p><p>“What happened?” Duke asked, hiding his interest in his beer.</p><p> If Nathan were more sober, he might care enough to ask why Duke wanted to know, but he wasn’t. He had no one else to tell, and he did want to vent. “I’m shit at my job,” He admitted. “Pay’s shit, the chief sucks—”</p><p>“Can’t believe your boss is your dad,” Duke commented.</p><p>Nathan glared at him. “More boss than dad.”</p><p>Duke raised his glass. “That sucks.”</p><p>Nathan knocked his glass against Duke’s, bumping first the bottom and then the rim, like they had when they were sharing their first beers, too clumsy to toast properly. The gesture was so familiar, and yet if anyone had asked, Nathan wouldn’t have been able to explain it to them. He might have denied having a special way of toasting with Duke.</p><p>He hadn’t thought about it in years, but his muscles remembered.</p><p>All of his memories of Duke were like that, buried under the surface of his skin until something—the look in Duke’s eyes, the curve of his lips—knocked the memory loose, made it necessary.</p><p>“What did you do?” Duke asked.</p><p>Nathan finished his beer; he was approaching truly drunk and he really should care more. He was about to answer Duke when his phone buzzed in his pocket.</p><p>His father had texted him. <em>No need to come in tomorrow. Take the day. Dad. </em></p><p>He wanted to throw the phone across the room, wanted to go outside and toss it into the fucking ocean.</p><p>“Bastard,” He muttered instead, waving at Bill for another beer.</p><p>“Nathan?” Duke said.</p><p>“I forgot to ask Mr. Pritchard from the hardware store if he had any enemies,” Nathan said.</p><p>“Why in the fuck would Pritch have enemies?” Duke asked.</p><p>It was more gratifying than Nathan would have liked to admit to hear someone else say it. “Anyway, Chief told me I ‘missed the obvious’ and now he’s changed the schedule so I don’t have to go in tomorrow.”</p><p>“Did you want to?” Duke asked.</p><p>“No,” Nathan said. “But I wanted to blow it off, not be told I was useless.”</p><p>“You’re not useless, Nate.”</p><p>No one had called him that since he was a kid. He’d never liked it—even if there were worse things they could call him—but when Duke said it, the nickname didn’t make him want to hunch his shoulders and hide.</p><p>It sounded nice coming from Duke.</p><p>He muttered a thanks, not sure how to take a compliment from Duke. “He’s just hard to work with. It’ll blow over.”</p><p>Duke nodded. “I never would have taken a job with my old man.”</p><p>“Doubt anywhere else would have hired me,” Nathan said. He’d meant it as a joke, but somehow it didn’t come across that way.</p><p>Duke looked sympathetic, which Nathan hated. He didn’t want to be pitied. That just meant people thought he was pitiful. Duke’s gaze was intense though, focused. People never looked at him like that; they usually looked right through him, and he didn’t mind this.</p><p> “Lot of jobs in the world, Nate,” Was all Duke said, turning away and breaking the moment.</p><p>“You’d know,” Nathan joked. “Tell me about where you’ve been.”</p><p>Duke’s guard went up again; Nathan could see it.</p><p>Carefully, he added a joke, wondering if there was any way to prove to him that this wasn’t an interrogation. “Did you go everywhere you always talked about?”</p><p>The tension in Duke’s shoulder’s relaxed just a little as he let out his breath. “Yeah, most of them. Never did get up to Alaska, but someday.”</p><p>Nathan waited, eager to hear more.</p><p>“Stayed south of the equator whenever I could,” Duke said. “Brazil, Argentina, but I did a few long hauls to see coastal Africa and parts of Asia.”</p><p>“Where was your favorite?”</p><p>Duke hesitated, and Nathan could almost sense him editing the story, cutting out some detail he didn’t want to share with Nathan. “Everywhere,” He said. “But Thailand was incredible. And you wouldn’t believe the diving in Palau. Or the food! God, Nathan there’s this market in Buenos Aires; you’d have loved it.”</p><p>Duke looked exactly like he had when they’d been kids, wandering the beaches poking crabs with sticks while Duke weaved elaborate stories about where he would go as soon as he left Haven.</p><p>Except back then it hadn’t been him; it had been <em>them. </em></p><p>“I’m glad,” Nathan said sincerely, “That it was what you hoped.”</p><p>Suddenly, Duke’s eyes were ancient and sad, and very, very distant. “Yeah,” He said, even though it didn’t sound like an agreement at all.</p><p>Nathan finished his beer, and realized that he couldn’t remember if it was his third or fourth.</p><p>Duke steered the conversation away from himself and towards town gossip, so smoothly that Nathan didn’t even notice until they were discussing who had moved, who’d stayed, who got married.</p><p>“Can’t believe Leo has kids,” Duke said. “He didn’t seem like the settling down type.”</p><p>Nathan shrugged. “Didn’t think he was, but he really stepped up when Liz passed. He’s good with them.”</p><p>“Whatever happened to Denise and Mark?”</p><p>“Divorced,” Nathan said. “Denise moved to,” He waved his hand vaguely, “Somewhere.”</p><p>Duke was smiling, and though Nathan suspected he was laughing at him, it was still nice to see. “I hope she’s enjoying—” Duke copied Nathan’s hand gesture, “—Somewhere.”</p><p>Nathan laughed harder than the joke warranted, which was when he realized he was probably too far gone to keep drinking. “I should—Gotta get going,” He said. He left more cash than was necessary on the bar and stood up.</p><p>When he stumbled, Duke caught him. “You can’t drive like this.”</p><p>Nathan gave him a look. “I wasn’t going to.” The words blurred together.</p><p>Bill was giving him a concerned look, and Nathan wanted to wave him off. He was fine.  He could sleep it off in his car.</p><p>“I’ve got him, Bill,” Duke said, and he kept one sturdy hand on Nathan’s chest as he led him out.</p><p>Nathan’s thoughts were now running together as much as his words. He’d had too much to drink and barely touched his food, which he realized might be a mistake.</p><p>“Jesus, do you still have that car?” Duke asked.</p><p>Nathan puffed out his chest, indignant. “Of course I do. I take care of my stuff.”</p><p>He really wished he was clear-headed enough to interpret the look Duke was giving him. He almost wanted to call it <em>fond </em>but surely that couldn’t be right.</p><p>“Give me your keys,” Duke said patiently, and Nathan handed them over without second thought, even though he couldn’t remember the last time he’d let someone else drive his truck.</p><p>It might—he realized through his haze—have been Duke, years ago when Nathan had first gotten it.</p><p>Duke’s face was illuminated in streetlight strobes, and Nathan stared, noting the places he’d changed, and the ways he hadn’t. Slowly, without really even noticing it happening, the alcohol, the rough and familiar jolt of the road, and the soft sound of the radio, even Duke’s breathing, lulled him to sleep, and he drifted off without telling Duke his address, or realizing why that was a problem.</p>
<hr/><p>Nathan had always been a goddamn lightweight. It had been fine when they were kids; he’d been scrawny and easily hauled home and into bed where he could sleep it off.</p><p>The same could not be said of this new Nathan, who—while still thin—was nearly as tall as Duke and exactly awake enough to get in the way while Duke was trying to get him into the guestroom.</p><p>“You know,” Nathan said, stumbling and nearly plummeting headfirst down the narrow stairs, “I can grow a beard now.”</p><p>Duke kept a death grip on the collar of Nathan’s shirt to keep him as upright as possible until both feet were solidly in the galley. “You should do it.”</p><p>Nathan turned around, swaying a little, and Duke couldn’t tell if it was because he was wasted or because he wasn’t used to being on a ship.</p><p>“Should I grow one of those?” Nathan slurred, his fingers brushing against Duke’s goatee in a way that was both too casual and far too intimate.</p><p>Duke pulled away. “You couldn’t pull it off.” He turned it into a joke, because that was easier than facing the open—if very disoriented—honesty in Nathan’s eyes.</p><p>He had to keep one arm around Nathan to keep him from wandering off while Duke shoved the door to the guestroom open, and then he tipped Nathan unceremoniously into the cot.</p><p>His head was a little clearer now that he wasn’t literally holding Nathan, feeling his narrow, muscled frame pressed against his own.</p><p>“G’night, Duke,” Nathan muttered into the pillow, already appearing mostly asleep.</p><p>Duke closed the door slowly, careful that the old, underutilized hinges didn’t squeak too much, and pressed his forehead against the door. “Goodnight, Nathan.”</p><p>He went back up to the deck, grabbing one of his last bottles of his friend’s homemade rum. He liked to save it for special occasions, but damn if he didn’t need something strong—and nothing is quite as strong as homemade liquor given to you by a man who didn’t care if he blinded you—after that evening.  </p><p>Nathan Wuornos.</p><p>Nathan <em>fucking </em>Wuornos.</p><p><em>Detective </em>Nathan Wuornos.</p><p>Duke folded himself in half, his head between his knees, letting the rush of blood and the feel of his fingernails dragging over his scalp ground him.</p><p>“I came back to stay out of trouble,” He told the sky. It was mostly true. Things had gotten bad after Bolivar, and then Evi had skipped town and he’d nearly gotten pinched.</p><p>All he had wanted from returning to Haven was a fresh start, a clean slate, something new.</p><p>But there was nothing new about Nathan, not to him.</p><p>Nathan was the worn out sweater you find buried in the back of your closet, and Duke had to know better than to wrap himself up in him.</p><p><em>You don’t talk to cops, </em>Duke reminded himself fiercely.</p><p><em>But it’s Nathan, </em>A childlike voice replied. <em>He’s not like other cops. </em></p><p>Duke rolled his eyes at his own idiotic nostalgia. “They’re all the same,” He said aloud.</p><p>Besides, Duke’s judgement couldn’t be trusted. The last person he’d trusted had screwed him over and taken everything with her. For all he knew, letting Nathan in would end in the same kind of disaster.</p><p>And yet, there was the voice again. <em>But it’s Nathan. </em></p><p>Duke downed far too much rum in one go and stared up at the stars. He remembered Mrs. Seligson’s dedicated attempts to get him interested in Shakespeare, remembered how he’d come in, shocked and furious and fourteen years old, after finishing <em>Romeo &amp; Juliet. </em></p><p><em>It was destiny, </em>She’d told him, patiently explaining the concept of star-crossed lovers.</p><p><em>Why couldn’t they have fallen in love with someone else? Or made their plan together, talked to each other? </em>Duke had said, <em>Screw destiny! </em></p><p>He wondered if there was some spot in the sky reserved for him and Nathan, where they were stitched together, and if that was why, no matter how far he’d sailed or how little he’d allowed himself to reminisce, he’d thought of Nathan so often over the past fifteen years.</p><p>He drank more rum, determined to get all of <em>that</em> out of his head. He would wash it away with liquor or vomit it up with his subpar dinner, anything that kept it out of his head.</p><p>He could not think of Nathan like that.</p><p>It was too soon, too much, too dangerous, too stupid.</p><p>Duke was done with much, with danger, and definitely with stupid. From here on out he was making choices for himself. If he’d learned one lesson from his wildfire of a marriage it was that he had to look out for number one.</p><p>No one else was going to.</p><p>Duke polished off a quarter of the bottle before he could go to bed and sleep, but no matter how deeply he soaked his brain in rum, he couldn’t quite forget that Nathan was on his boat, two walls away.</p><p>The next morning, he made breakfast. He didn’t really expect Nathan to wake up, but he made enough for both of them. He also made twice as much coffee as he usually would, because he knew Nathan.</p><p>He let the food get cold for half an hour before he gave up on Nathan and threw it away. He also decided he had some time to think about his business, which he really needed to get off the ground here in Haven.</p><p>The day before, he’d made a list of people he wanted to look out for. Some of them were his father’s contacts, others were people in the area Duke had run into on various jobs.</p><p>Duke had always wondered if there was something in the Haven water, because it had a surprisingly large criminal underbelly for an otherwise pleasant Maine fishing town.</p><p>He was still skimming the list when Nathan emerged, bleary eyed and miserable. Duke silently pointed him to the coffee pot</p><p>Nathan did not look like he wanted any kind of conversation, so Duke returned to his list, tilting it a little in the hopes that Nathan either wouldn’t see or would be too hungover to care.</p><p>“John Draft’s in jail,” Nathan said, pointing to the list after he’d finished half a mug.</p><p>Duke started a little, he hadn’t even realized Nathan had come up behind him. “You do that?” He asked hesitantly.</p><p>Nathan snorted. “No. It just went around a lot.”</p><p>“Well… guess I don’t have to pay him back now,” He said mildly.</p><p>Nathan gave him as much of a disapproving look as someone that hungover could manage. Before Duke could react, he tugged the list out of his hands.</p><p>“This guy’s dead.” He pointed to another name. “He runs a rehab program for parolees; probably not why you’re looking for him.” Nathan looked up. “Ian Haskell? Really?”</p><p>Duke shrugged. He wasn’t sure what Nathan was doing, what his angle was on all of this. He seemed… he seemed like he didn’t care at all.</p><p>Nathan gave the list back. “Good luck with your hiring process.”</p><p>“Do you… do you want to stay for breakfast?”</p><p>Nathan shook his head. “Just, um… Last night, did we… um, did we—”</p><p>Duke rolled his eyes. “No, Nathan. Don’t worry, your virtue is intact.”</p><p>Nathan immediately bristled at Duke’s tone. His shoulders went tense and he pulled his arms in close, his jaw tightening.</p><p>“Hey, Nate, I didn’t mean—”</p><p>“Whatever, Duke. See you around.”</p><p>“Nate!” Duke called. The list fell from his hand and a dozen thoughts raced in his head. He wanted to keep Nathan here, he wanted to smooth this over. Nathan hadn’t been a cop about the list…</p><p>This was a bad idea. A terrible one.</p><p>But the words were already coming out of his mouth. “Do you want to go fishing?”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. This Wild Desire To Belong</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Here's round two! Thanks for coming back if you are, and thanks for starting it if you did. I hope you like it and I really appreciate hearing what you liked about it!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Nathan let himself be mad at Duke for three days. By day three, he was lonely and confused and bored enough that he started to justify Duke’s actions.</p><p>Or really, his words.</p><p>Nathan knew, deep down, that it was a joke Duke would have made with any other man. He knew that Duke hadn’t said it to be hurtful, because Duke knew how to insult Nathan without going <em>there. </em></p><p>It wasn’t Duke’s style.</p><p>Still, Nathan wanted to put armor on around Duke. He wanted to be a little angry because that was significantly safer than diving in and crashing and burning.</p><p>But then, hadn’t he already crashed and burned when he’d gotten drunk and let Duke take him home? When he’d asked Duke if they’d hooked up and not even known what he wanted the answer to be?</p><p>Speaking of questions Nathan didn’t have answers to, he had never responded to Duke’s question, shouted like a punchline while Nathan was trying to leave.</p><p>Did he want to go fishing? It was kind of complicated, or at least Nathan was finding a way to complicate it.<br/>He wanted to go.</p><p>But there was more involved than just what Nathan wanted. With Duke there was always more involved. An evening hanging out with Duke had usually landed Nathan in trouble in one way or another, and trouble was the last thing he needed.</p><p>Work was a mess. Nathan’s screwup with the B&amp;E at Pritch’s had not been forgotten, and he swore the chief had quietly asked everyone to give him as many pointless and annoying tasks as possible.</p><p><em>Next he’ll have me cataloguing the goddamn evidence room, </em>Nathan thought bitterly. Although the bright side to that was that Nathan might finally get to return all the weed the chief had taken from Duke over the years, not that it would be much good anymore.</p><p>He sighed, frustrated at how easily his thoughts had turned back to Duke.</p><p>He couldn’t risk spending time with Duke, not when everyone knew what Duke was, or at least what he had been. Nathan, of course, knew he had moved on from the petty crime and vandalism of his childhood and into crime that might, to some people, fall under the category of ‘serious’ but he had also noticed that there wasn’t much on Duke’s rap sheet that would have hurt anyone.</p><p>Admittedly, that was just the stuff he’d been caught for that Nathan could easily look up, but it meant something to him. Duke was not a bad person; he never had been, and Nathan knew that.  </p><p>Around and around Nathan went, sometimes getting as far as picking up his phone before realizing that he didn’t have Duke’s number and couldn’t have called him even if he wanted to.</p><p>“Nathan,” His father said, his voice its usual shade of gruff, which meant either that Nathan had messed up again, or that it was just another day.</p><p>Or possibly, his voice was always like that because in the chief’s book; Nathan had always messed up.</p><p>“Where’d you file the event permits for Saturday?”</p><p>Nathan frowned. This should be an easy answer; why did the question feel like a trick? “With the permits?”</p><p>A muscle strained in his father’s throat. “They’re not there.”</p><p>Nathan felt his own anger build behind his eyes. He forced himself not to remind his father that filing permits wasn’t exactly in a detective’s job description. “That’s where I put them. If they’re not there, someone else moved them.”</p><p>“Watch your tone,” His father said.</p><p>Nathan bristled, biting down on his tongue before he snapped.</p><p>The moment passed and his father backed down, returning to normal. “So you don’t know where they are?”</p><p>“You could ask—”</p><p>But the chief was already shaking his head and leaving.</p><p>Nathan sat heavily on his chair; the weight of his father’s disappointment abruptly too heavy to stand with.</p><p>He returns to the paperwork he’s been staring at. A woman whose husband died at sea under mysterious circumstances a few years back was asking for his effects, and Nathan was trying to finish the release form. It should have been easy, but the words kept swimming together.</p><p>He needed to clear his head; needed to get away.</p><p>He needed to get Duke’s phone number.</p><p>Nathan left his shift early. It wasn’t early enough for anyone to notice or care, but he knew other people would still be working. Namely, Beattie would still be working.</p><p>He walked into her office with a perfunctory knock on the doorframe. “Hey, Beattie.”<br/>She looked up and her eyes were red enough to make Nathan feel suddenly very uncomfortable. “Oh, Nathan,” She swallowed hard and fixed on a fake smile. “What can I do for you?”</p><p>“I, uh,” Suddenly his task felt a little ridiculous. “I have some… I have some questions for Duke Crocker. Do you have a phone number where I can reach him?”</p><p>If she thought it was a strange request, she didn’t say so. “Yeah, hold on let me look him up. Is everything okay?”</p><p>Nathan nodded and tried to look official. “He’s a person of interest.”</p><p>Beattie sighed. “Can’t say I’m surprised he’s up to something, but I hoped he might stay out of all that now that he’s back.”</p><p>His first nod blended into the second one, and he wondered if he was nodding too much, if it made it obvious that he didn’t need Duke for anything work-related. “We’re not sure he’s involved. I just think he might have information.”</p><p>Beattie wrote the phone number on a scrap of paper and handed it to Nathan. “I hope you find what you need.”</p><p>“Is… is everything okay?” Nathan asked carefully; her eyes were still red and the hand that held the paper was shaking. He wasn’t sure he really wanted to know, but Beattie was an old friend; half his job was helping her deal with messes at the harbor.</p><p>Beattie slumped. “I’m uh, I’m fine.” She said it the way someone would say that the world was ending. “My ex-husband is getting remarried.”</p><p>“Oh, I’m… I’m sorry to hear that.”</p><p>She shrugged. “I shouldn’t be surprised. He’s a good man.”</p><p>“I’m sorry,” He said again, because he wasn’t sure what the hell to say.</p><p>“Good luck with Duke,” Beattie said, dismissing him.</p><p>Nathan nodded. “I hope… uh, I hope it gets better.”</p><p>The look she gave him was tragic in a soft kind of way, and he left hoping she knew that he’d meant it.</p><p>Two days passed in a blur of boring work politics and quiet nights, and he finally allowed himself to look at the phone number he’d gotten from Beattie.</p><p>He didn’t actually make the call until his lunch break on the third day. He wasn’t sure why he waited, why a week had to go by before he could call Duke and answer his damn question.</p><p>“Duke.”</p><p>It made sense to Nathan that Duke didn’t answer his phone with his last name, even if it made for a rather odd greeting. “Hey, Duke.”</p><p>“Nathan?” He asked, half-hesitant.</p><p>Nathan hoped the other half was hopeful. “Yeah. I uh, I was—” The words he’d practiced abandoned him. “Just, uh, wondering if the offer still stood.”</p><p>“The offer?”<br/>“Fishing,” Nathan said. “I uh, I’d like to go, if you still want to.”</p><p>Duke paused for a long time, during which Nathan could faintly hear seagulls screeching in the background and the rough ambient sound of the harbor.</p><p>“Yeah, that’d be nice,” Duke said. “When are you free?”</p><hr/><p>Nathan had called. Nathan had called and he wanted to go fishing, and goddamn if that wasn’t enough to make Duke forget how much he hated awkward, formal social situations like dinner parties for meeting his best friend’s fiancée.</p><p>Duke would have much rather cooked for everyone on the Rouge than go to Bill’s house and be polite about whatever he made. It wasn’t that Bill was necessarily a bad cook, but he also wasn’t good.</p><p>What Bill was though, was very sweet and very easy to insult, so Duke drove to Bill’s house with a very expensive bottle of wine, trying the whole time not to think about Nathan, to get himself in the mindset he’d need for tonight. Bill would want that, and moreover he deserved it. Duke wouldn’t spend this whole night—which he knew was important to Bill—distracted and thinking about Nathan. He would smile and drink and have a good time.  </p><p>Determined, he started smiling as soon as he got to Bill’s doorstep and knocked. For once, the smile wasn’t fake. He was excited to see Bill, and excited to meet his fiancée, but truthfully, his smile was mostly due to the call he’d gotten on the way.</p><p>He’d really thought he’d seen the last of Nathan when he stormed off after their awkward morning-after. He’d figured that Nathan didn’t want to stick around and hear Duke put his foot in his mouth over and over again, and that the fragile remains of their friendship were permanently scattered in the wind.</p><p>But Nathan had called.</p><p>Duke refused to label this feeling because he had never been giddy in his entire life and he wasn’t about to start now.</p><p>Right now, he wasn’t thinking about Nathan, because he was waiting for Bill to open the door, after which he wouldn’t think about Nathan for the whole night.</p><p>“Duke!” Bill opened the door and greeted him with a tight, unexpected hug.</p><p>It was sweet. Duke had to admit that it was nice to have someone this happy to see him; he couldn’t remember the last time he’d been greeted so enthusiastically.</p><p>Without bothering with the usual pleasantries, Bill dragged him inside and into the kitchen.</p><p>“Duke, this is Meg. Meg, Duke.”</p><p>Meg smiled, but her eyes were appraising when she looked Duke up and down, studying him like a painting she wasn’t sure she wanted to buy.</p><p>“Nice to meet you,” She said after a beat longer than Duke would have liked. He was relieved that it was genuine though; she actually seemed glad to be meeting him.</p><p>“Congratulations,” Duke said, fairly confident that was what he was supposed to say.</p><p>He had been running jobs for so long, spending time almost exclusively with other people who were comfortable with bending—and usually outright breaking—the law. His own marriage had been such a mad rush that he didn’t think anyone had ever congratulated them. He found, suddenly, that he had no useful practice with <em>any </em>of the normal conventions for this kind of event.</p><p>But Meg smiled. “Thank you. Bill’s so glad you’re back in town. We were worried we wouldn’t be able to get ahold of you so you could be there, much less in the wedding.”</p><p>God, he’d agreed to be <em>in</em> the wedding. But the ‘we’ she’d used caught his attention and warmed him slightly. She wanted him at her wedding, not because she knew or cared about him at all, but because Bill did.</p><p>“Yeah, sorry, I’ve been hard to get ahold of for the past couple years,” Duke said ruefully. “I brought wine to make up for it?” He plastered on his best ‘you’re getting conned and you’re going to like it’ smile.</p><p>Meg’s answering smile was indulgent, like she could see what he was doing and found it more funny than convincing. She took the wine from him and glanced at the label, her eyebrows shooting up to her hairline. “This is a really unusual vintage,” She said, a teasing, unasked question in her voice.</p><p><em>Shit. </em>“Oh, uh, yeah. I know a guy.”</p><p>“He must be some guy,” Meg said. “I was a wine rep for a couple years out of college. This is the kind of bottle people talk about in whispers. We’re lucky to be in the same room with it.”</p><p>“Yeah, I uh, won it. In a poker game.”</p><p>“That sort of thing happens to Duke a lot,” Bill said, “You should hear how he got his boat.”</p><p>“Did you win that too?” Meg asked, turning to rinse out a slightly dusty decanter.</p><p>“Yes, actually,” Duke said. “But I like to think we found each other.”</p><p>Meg laughed. “You sound like a pirate from an old movie.” She finished pouring the wine into the decanter. “We’d better let that breathe for a while. Bill tells me you can cook, any chance you want to lend a hand? We’re making jambalaya.”  </p><p>Duke breathed a quiet sigh of relief; he hadn’t wanted to eat Bill’s cooking, but perhaps he could trust Meg and throw some spices in when their backs were turned. “Yeah, happy to.”</p><p>“We think we’ll get married at the boathouse,” Meg said while they worked. “Bill doesn’t want to get married at the Good Shepherd—”</p><p>“Don’t think the Rev would let me in the doors after that Halloween when we were in high school,” Bill said, nudging Duke with his elbow as he passed.</p><p>“He can’t prove that was us,” Duke replied. They had gotten away with a casual amount of vandalism because, strangely enough, Chief Wuornos—whose son’s whereabouts on the night in question couldn’t be confirmed—decided it would be impossible to track down the culprits and had told the Rev to let it go.</p><p>Reverend Driscoll probably hadn’t let it go, but Duke also suspected he had other reasons for hating Duke, Nathan, and the McShaw brothers as much as he did.</p><p>“My parents will be disappointed that it’s not a church,” Meg went on, “But I’m not. The boathouse is gorgeous, and Bill’s parents knew Arnie, so we think we’ll get a deal on it.”</p><p>“He’d better give you a deal,” Duke said. “The whole town would eat him alive if he charged locals as much as he charges the tourists.”</p><p>“I’m not local,” Meg reminded him.</p><p>“They’ll forgive you for that; Bill’s family’s been here forever.”</p><p>“Not as long as Duke’s,” Bill argued. “Remember that project we had to do for history? There have been Crockers in Haven for—”</p><p>“Long enough to make this one want to get the hell out,” Duke said, cutting him off. He’d just met Meg; he was not about to talk about his family.</p><p>She didn’t push, and Duke found himself warming up to her considerably. She moved easily back into wedding talk. “We gave Geoff a plus one because he’s the best man, but god only knows who he’ll bring.”</p><p>“If we’re lucky he’ll bring Kat,” Bill said.</p><p>“God, is that still a thing?” Duke asked, thinking about the girl who’d hung around when they were kids, two years younger than Bill—a full four younger than Geoff—who’d been hopelessly in love with the disinterested Geoff.</p><p>“Not really. She’s a chef up in Castle Rock right now but if he asked her to jump—”</p><p>“She’d come running back,” Duke finished a little sadly. Geoff was a friend, but Duke knew he didn’t deserve that kind of devotion.  </p><p>“So, who will you bring?” Meg asked, suddenly giving the shrimp she was cleaning her full attention.</p><p>Bill nudged Duke again. “C’mon, you can’t tell you didn’t meet anyone the whole time you were traveling. Is there a girl we should be asking about? Or a guy?”</p><p>Duke glanced at Meg quickly, checking her reaction.</p><p>There wasn’t one, she was still cleaning shrimp with a perfectly neutral expression.<br/>“Uh, no. I… I burned a few bridges before I came back here,” Duke admitted. “I probably won’t have anyone to bring.”</p><p>The thought of trying to bring Evi to Bill’s wedding, of introducing her to Haven and everyone there, was almost comical. She would hate all of this. She hated small towns, hated little communities where everyone knew everyone.</p><p>In some ways, he’d loved Evi for that. If there was one person who wouldn’t give a shit about his legacy in Haven, it was Evidence Ryan-Crocker, but other times she’d been impossible about it, teasing when he tried to talk about his friends from home, joking about him being a crusty local who wanted to live and die in his hometown.</p><p>Duke had never wanted that; he’d only ever wanted to talk about living in his hometown, and even that had been too much for Evi, who thought the past lived in the past.</p><p>“Well, there are plenty of nice people here,” Meg said, and Duke noticed and appreciated her carefully gender-neutral phrasing. “My sister would love you but—”</p><p>“But she’s crazy and not officially divorced,” Bill finished.</p><p>“She’s not crazy,” Meg insisted, but she was smiling at Bill. “She’s had a rough year.”</p><p>“All the more reason for Duke to get a date,” Bill said. “Speaking of, what happened with Nathan?”</p><p>Duke was in the middle of cutting up a pepper and faltered, nearly cutting himself. “Uh, what?”</p><p>Bill snorted. “You dragged his half-unconscious ass out of my bar last week?”</p><p>“Oh, yeah. He uh, had a bad day at work, got loaded without meaning to, slept it off on my boat.”</p><p>“He slept over?” Meg raised her eyebrows, a teasing smile tugging on the corner of her mouth.</p><p>“In my guestroom on the world’s most uncomfortable cot,” Duke said, surprised at how defensive he sounded. “We’ve barely talked since then.”</p><p>“Nathan was the guy you were seeing in high school though, right?” Meg asked.</p><p>Duke clenched his jaw. “Sort of. It was a long time ago.” Yet another thing Duke didn’t want to get into. He didn’t want to think about that past, he wanted to hope that this fishing trip could be a fresh start.</p><p>Sensing this, or possibly just possessing enough tact to change the subject, Meg took Duke’s cutting board from him. “Everything in the pot!”</p><p>She let the onions and peppers sauté for a minute and then added the chicken and sausage. “We have a few minutes; who wants to try the wine?” She asked cheerfully.</p><p>Duke poured, handing the first glass to Meg and then one to Bill, saving the last for himself.</p><p>Meg made a big show of swirling the glass and smelling it, but Duke saw real appreciation on her face.</p><p>She took an almost reverent first sip. “Holy shit,” She quietly. “I don’t care where you got this as long as there’s more of it,” She laughed.</p><p>“You and I are going to get along just fine,” Duke said, putting an arm around her shoulders.</p><p>Meg beamed and leaned into the hug.</p><p>The rest of the dinner went perfectly fine. After a while, Duke realized that he was very comfortable sitting at Bill’s scratched dining room table and talking about whatever.</p><p>He had forgotten this, the easiness of talking to people who knew him, of not having to explain the various weirdnesses of his childhood. Bill already knew all of it, and that was nice.</p><p>They had finished the bottle of wine before dinner was even finished cooking and moved on to Bill’s liquor cabinet, which had them all a little more relaxed than they might have been.</p><p>“So, are you going to put the moves on officer Wuornos?” Bill asked, a little slurred. “You should have seen him when I tried to talk about you, looked like he’d been slapped.” Bill faltered. “Uh, in a good way, I mean.”</p><p>Duke rolled his eyes. “Nathan always looks like that. And no,” He said, “I think I need to keep <em>Officer </em>Wuornos out of my business.”</p><p>Meg stifled a knowing laugh. “Doesn’t seem like your business is much of a secret.”</p><p>Duke shrugged. “Doesn’t matter if people talk as long as no one can prove anything.” He winked at her and she took a sip of her drink to hide her flush.</p><p>Later, after he’d sobered up enough to drive home, Duke wasn’t sure why he hadn’t told Bill that he was going fishing with Nathan. Somehow, the fact felt private, secret.</p><p>It was just for him and Nathan, and not up for the—lighthearted and kindly meant, but still unbearable—teasing that Bill was sure to give.</p><p>He collapsed into bed as soon as he got home, falling asleep nearly instantly, so he didn’t check his phone until the next day.</p><p>There was a message there from an old contact, someone Duke had been out of touch with since before he met Evi.</p><p>“Crocker, I heard you were back in town. I have some things I need to move discreetly, if you’re looking for work.”</p><p>Duke drank a cup of coffee before calling back for details. “I can move some things for you,” He said. “No questions asked.”</p><hr/><p>It took them another week to find time to actually go fishing. Nathan spent the Friday before on the edge of his seat at work, jumping at every noise from the old building settling or the ancient air conditioning unit trying to resurrect itself.</p><p>There was nothing to do. No one had committed even the minorest of crimes in Haven over the past week, and Nathan had even finished his paperwork. He was sitting at his desk, twiddling his thumbs and trying very hard not to imagine relaxing on the deck of Duke’s boat, basking in sunlight and sipping on a beer.</p><p>Just to keep his mind busy, Nathan opened the file drawer he kept for these occasions.</p><p>In it, he found a handful of files that he always went through when there was nothing else to do.</p><p>Although he’d never have admitted this to anyone, Nathan had secret dreams of solving one of Haven’s—surprisingly numerous—unsolved murders. He kept files from a few of them in his desk for when he had free time. So far, he hadn’t come across anything that made much of a difference, usually just coming up with new questions that led back to old unanswered questions, but if nothing else it kept him from falling asleep in the middle of the day.</p><p>On a whim, Nathan opened the Colorado kid’s folder. He was a John Doe that had turned up on the beach when Nathan was just a kid and his father had only just made detective. There were no leads, and the autopsy report was inconclusive. Although it had been big news at the time, the case had gone cold fast and been shut ever since, without even IDing the body.</p><p>The only suspect was Max Hansen, and though this wasn’t something Nathan found in the file, he knew the chief had been very vocal about believing that Hansen had murdered the Colorado kid. Less than a month later, Hansen had murdered a family and been sent to Shawshank, hopefully never to be seen again.</p><p>Nathan had both Hansen’s and the Colorado kid’s file on his desk, looking for anything that might link the two of them.</p><p>The cause of death for both was suffocation, though on the blurry, black and white autopsy photos, Nathan couldn’t make out any bruising around the mouth or throat that would back it up. He’d tried to talk to Elinor about it a few times, but never managed to get a straight answer out of her.</p><p>The family was a tragedy. It looked like a senseless killing, but Nathan had always suspected that there was something motivating Hansen. None of the trial transcripts came across as someone who was unhinged or insane. He seemed calm, almost mocking, not the kind of person who randomly murdered three people for no reason.</p><p>Not to mention that so much of Hansen’s life was a mystery. To Nathan, it seemed almost intentionally frustrating, like someone had dug through town records, police files, the BMV, everything that might have given Nathan an idea of Hansen’s background, and scrubbed it clean.</p><p>Nathan let himself get buried in it, losing track of time while he poured over the few details until they were burned on the back of his mind. He didn’t think of Duke the whole time, except to occasionally be pleased that he wasn’t thinking about Duke.</p><p>He was startled out of his focus when his father walked into the office. “Nathan—” He stopped, staring at the mess of paper on the desk. “What are you doing?”</p><p>Nathan fought with the urge to be guilty, forcing himself not to cover up the papers. He was investigating a murder—doing his job—not looking at porn. There was no reason for shame.</p><p>“I was just looking—”</p><p>His father’s face turned a strange shade of purple when he saw the files. “What are you doing with these?”</p><p>“Uh, killing time,” Nathan said, stumbling more than he’d have liked. “Just looking into some old—”</p><p>“You don’t need to bother with that. Don’t you have work to do?” His father snapped.</p><p>Nathan reeled back, surprised more than hurt by his tone. “No. There’s nothing… there hasn’t been any crime. I was just looking into some old files in case—”</p><p>“You think you’re going to see something I didn’t?” The chief asked.</p><p>Nathan flinched. That <em>had</em> hurt. The ridicule in his tone, like he couldn’t imagine any occasion where Nathan saw something he’d missed. “No, I just—”</p><p>“You should be solving crimes that are happening in this decade,” His father scoffed.</p><p>“Right, but—” Nathan stopped himself before he tried to explain <em>again</em> that there were no crimes. “I just thought—” He took a deep breath. “There are so many strange deaths. This says he suffocated but there are no marks. Hansen has no records—”</p><p>The chief grabbed the files, sweeping them haphazardly into his arms. “Leave the past where it is and focus on what’s happening now.”</p><p>“<em>Nothing </em>is happening now,” Nathan said. He tried to keep his tone in check, tried not to get angry; this was a discussion with his boss, not an argument with his father.</p><p>“Find something to do or go home,” His father snapped and, still holding everything Nathan had gathered over months of investigation, he left the office.  </p><p>Furious, Nathan stood up, grabbed his jacket and walked out after his father.</p><p>The chief turned around and gaped at him.<br/>“You said find something to do or go home,” Nathan said, too loud and not caring. “I’m going home.”</p><p>It was probably not the first time Nathan had seen Garland Wuornos flinch, but it was still damned satisfying. He walked out, feeling his coworkers’ eyes on his back while they watched the little family drama play out in the middle of the room.</p><p>He was glad that he didn’t have to go to work tomorrow, and thrilled that he wouldn’t be in Haven for the whole day. He could take some time to breathe, and his father could get over himself, and they would arrive in the office on Monday to pretend that nothing had happened.</p><p>He barely slept that night, but still felt wide awake when he left his house. It made no sense to be nervous, and he wasn’t. He might have called it excitement, but it was an intense kind of excitement that wasn’t really justified by what was actually happening.</p><p>He was going fishing with Duke. With an old friend. They were catching up.</p><p>It was normal and casual, and absolutely not anything that should have Nathan’s heart racing and his hands shaking.</p><p>“It’s just fishing,” He said aloud to the empty air of his truck as he parked by the marina. They would go out, have fun, and be normal for a little while. It was a good idea; Nathan needed to blow off some steam after the argument.</p><p>“I can’t believe you still have that damn car,” Duke said as Nathan walked over to the boat. “I forgot to look the other night; is my sticker still in there?”</p><p>Nathan smiled, tension already easing out of his shoulders. “Yeah. Couldn’t scrape the damn thing off.”</p><p>Duke beamed.</p><p>“Permission to come aboard?” Nathan asked.</p><p>“Granted,” Duke called a weird, bad formal accent. He returned to his normal voice to add, “Careful with the railing there it’s a little loose.”</p><p>Nathan looked around the boat. He’d been in such a rush to get off of it that he’d barely paid attention. “This is—” He stopped unable to finish. Was the Rouge a wreck? Beautiful? “Perfect for you.”</p><p>Duke’s smile somehow got wider. “Welcome aboard,” He said. “Let’s get her out to sea and then I’ll give you the tour you slept through last time.”</p><p>Nathan’s cheeks heated at the reminder of the last time he’d been here. “Right. Uh, anything I can do to help?” He asked awkwardly, looking around at the ship for anything that looked similar to his father’s fishing boat.</p><p>Duke laughed as though he knew exactly what Nathan was thinking about. “No, I have her pretty well rigged so I can sail her on my own.”</p><p>Nathan could only imagine how much work that had taken. The Rouge had to be at least a hundred and forty feet, sailing her alone—much less doing it for distances like the ones Nathan vaguely remembered Duke describing—would be a nightmare.</p><p>Still reeling from this information and wondering how Duke—who’d needed Nathan’s help to pass public speaking in high school—had learned how to make those kinds of modifications. “Right, um, let me know if you think of anything.”</p><p>“Just relax,” Duke said. “We’ll be at sea in a bit.”</p><p>Thirty minutes later, Haven was a smudge in the distance and Duke had rejoined him on deck.</p><p>“Let me show you around.”</p><p>Nathan had already explored the deck on his own, examining the haphazard furniture and industrial crates Duke had lying around while he finished the coffee he’d brought.</p><p>Passing all this by, Duke led him belowdecks. “There’s some storage on the other side,” Duke said pointing through a thin wall. “And underneath, but the living space is all here.”</p><p>The galley was nice, wood-paneled and maximized for storage and living space, cozy without feeling cramped. It looked more lived-in and used than Nathan’s kitchen.</p><p>“You still like cooking,” He said, taking in what looked like a very carefully curated spice rack and a shelf of cookbooks, most of which weren’t written in English.</p><p>Duke smiled. “I dabble.” He seemed so proud.</p><p> Nathan had to hold back a smile of his own. <em>A king showing off his castle. </em></p><p>“Head’s there if you need it,” Duke said, pointing to a narrow door. “Your room is there,” He pointed to the one next to the head.</p><p>Nathan flexed his shoulders as if he were still feeling the repercussions of his night in Duke’s “guest room”. “Do you have management I could complain to?”</p><p>Duke laughed. “Yeah, I uh, don’t get a lot of guests. Don’t use the room a whole lot.”</p><p>“Maybe just upgrade from the cot?” He suggested.</p><p>“I’ll let them know. My manager’s an asshole though.”</p><p>Nathan laughed. “Mine too; I get it.”</p><p>“My room’s back there,” Duke said casually, resuming his tour. The door was shut though, and Nathan had to fight his natural curiosity. He remembered the barely livable closet Duke had grown up in, wallpapered with maps and movie posters. What would Duke’s room look like now that he was an adult with money to spend?</p><p>Somehow, that thought crossed Nathan’s lines for what was too intimate, and he looked away from the door. There were some questions that didn’t get answers.  </p><p>“It’s great,” He said, meaning it. “God, imagine showing us this when we were kids.”</p><p>“God, don’t get sentimental on me, Nate,” He laughed.</p><p>It was too late; Nathan was imagining what it would have been like if things were just a little different, if he’d been more like Duke, if he’d had nothing to prove and nothing to lose.</p><p>But those weren’t thoughts Nathan indulged. Not if there was any way to avoid it.</p><p>He’d made his choices more than a decade ago, and Duke had made choices of his own.</p><p>And somehow, they’d still ended up here on Duke’s boat, ready for a day away from their real lives, and that made the thoughts easier to have.</p><p>“That’s about all there is,” Duke said. “The hold’s a mess so there’s no reason to go in there.”</p><p>“Hiding something?” Nathan teased.</p><p>Duke laughed, but there was something slick about it, not quite true. “Only my hoarding habit.”</p><p>“I already know about that,” He laughed, ignoring the instinct that prickled behind his sternum, ignoring Duke’s lie.</p><p>They went back to the deck and set up a couple fishing poles, tossing them into the water and leaving them.</p><p>They were anchored out by one of the smaller, uninhabited islands, where Duke swore they could catch tuna, though Nathan figured he was just Duke being Duke and talking about things he didn’t know shit about.</p><p>Once everything was set, they just left their lines in the water and lounged on the deck, drinking beer.</p><p>“So, I didn’t get a chance to ask before you passed out; are you seeing anyone?”</p><p>“Why?” Nathan snorted, “Interested?”</p><p>Duke rolled his eyes. “Curious.”</p><p>“I’m not seeing anyone. Are you?” He paused. “Shit, no, you said there was a breakup—"</p><p>“Yeah, uh, I’d rather not talk about that,” Duke said, shifting in his chair. “You see much of Hannah Driscoll?”</p><p>Nathan shook his head. “The rev thinks I’m some kind of demon. Hannah doesn’t agree with him, but—”</p><p>“But you don’t want to deal with that,” Duke finished for him. “I get that.”</p><p>He paused, studying Nathan in a way that made his face heat. “You… I’m not trying to cross a line here, Nate, but… you look really good.”</p><p>Nathan swallowed the rush of emotion that threatened to choke him. “Uh, thanks.”</p><p>He wasn’t used to compliments like that. Not from people who <em>knew. </em></p><p>As much as Nathan loved Haven, the town had a habit of forgetting, of running a thin coat of varnish over its unusual history until everything was appropriate and usual. So, they had forgotten that there had ever been anyone other than Nathan Wuornos, which was good.</p><p>Mostly.</p><p>Duke looking at Nathan like <em>that, </em>with eyes that acknowledged the history, the things Nathan had had to claw his way through in order to be here as himself, meant more than Nathan would have been able to guess.</p><p>Sometimes, it was nice to be seen. </p><p>“Are things uh, better now?” Duke asked, and Nathan almost laughed. It was a rare thing to see Duke awkward; usually that was Nathan’s role.</p><p>“I—" He wasn’t sure. He didn’t think to compare his present with his past that often. “Yeah, I think it is better.” At least now he wasn’t comparing his present to a hypothetical future where things were good.</p><p>On the whole, things were fine. Not everything he’d dreamt as a kid, but fine. Steady.</p><p>“I hate my job,” He said after a stretch of silence. He’d never admitted it aloud before, and it felt good, like taking off a backpack he’d been carrying for weeks.</p><p>“It’s a shitty job.” </p><p>Nathan barked a surprised laugh. He hadn’t been expecting anything when he’d said it, but the answer was one he would only get from Duke. “Yeah, I guess it is.”</p><p>He expected another quip, something about how Nathan could do something else with his life, but Duke fell silent again, staring out at the water.</p><p>Not sure if it was an awkward silence, or not, Nathan broke it. “Are you looking for work?”</p><p>Duke shrugged. “I’ll do this and that, keep busy while I’m here.”</p><p>Nathan forced himself to ignore the prickling feeling at the back of his neck. Duke was lying again, probably hiding something, but Nathan didn’t want to care.</p><p>He realized that he’d rather have whatever was happening with them right now than evidence of Duke’s criminal activities.</p><p>“How long are you planning on staying?” He asked carefully.</p><p>Again, Duke’s shoulders lifted noncommittally. “I’m not sure. A while though. I need some space from things.”</p><p>“Damn, that really was a bad breakup,” Nathan said, almost laughing.</p><p>“Never mix business with pleasure, Nate,” He said, trying to sound old and wise, but Nathan thought he just sounded like a dick.</p><p>When Nathan didn’t immediately agree, Duke reached out and turned Nathan’s head towards him. “Seriously. Don’t ever date a coworker. The breakup is the messiest—”</p><p>“Yeah, okay, Duke, whatever,” He said. Thankfully, he managed to avoid making some joke about how then it would be very safe for Nathan to date Duke, because their careers were so opposite.</p><p>The words still stuck, unspoken in the air between them.</p><p>The patron saint of relieving awkward tension must have been hovering around, because Nathan’s fishing line started to twitch and flex.</p><p>“Looks like you’ve got something,” Duke said, and a stiff ocean breeze cleared the last of the awkwardness.</p><p>It took several minutes of wrestling to haul the damn thing onto the boat.</p><p>“That’s gotta be seventy pounds,” Duke said. “It’s longer than you were in high school.”</p><p>Nathan glared, shoving playfully at Duke’s shoulder. He remembered those days—before his impromptu growth spurt senior year—when he’d looked at Duke, who was already tall and starting to grow into his natural grace, and been so awestruck.</p><p>Back then, he’d stared at Duke in wonder and uncertainty, unable to tell if he wanted to love Duke or be him.</p><p>“I’ll definitely have dinner for a while,” Nathan said, ignoring the fact that he didn’t know how to cook—much less clean—a tuna.</p><p>“If you share, I’ll cook for you,” Duke offered. </p><p>Nathan smiled, pleased that they were already talking about meeting again. Their friendship—and whatever else they’d been—had been rock, but they were adults now. Nathan was willing to take the chance and count on both of them having grown up enough to handle this.</p><p>‘This’ being a friendship. Nothing more. Nathan wasn’t looking for more than that in his life right now, and if he had been, it wouldn’t have been with Duke.</p><p>A couple hours later, Nathan’s was the only big catch, which he wasn’t gloating about at all, and Duke had barely managed to reel anything that wasn’t debris, which he wasn’t sulking about at all. It was nice, easy and fun in a way that Nathan’s life hadn’t been for so long.</p><p>He found himself missing the days when Duke had talked about them sailing away together. Looking at the sky on a sunny day with calm seas made anything feel possible. He wondered, idly, if Duke asked him to go right now, would he?</p><p>The question went unanswered, because Nathan noticed something in the distance. “There’s someone else out here.”</p><p>Duke looked at it and swallowed hard. “Ah. Well. Do you think we should find a new spot? Obviously we’re not having much luck here.”</p><p>“Uh, I guess. No need to if it’s a problem though,” Nathan couldn’t quite pin down Duke’s new energy. “It’s not like we really need to catch anything.”</p><p>Duke laughed, a grinding, fake sound. “Yeah, but I bet there’s more to see on the other side of the island. I’ll be right back.”</p><p>He left, running up to the wheelhouse, and moments later the engine rumbled to life.</p><p>Nathan looked at the approaching boat again, and now that it was closer, he could see that it was a coast guard ship.</p><p>Suddenly, several things made sense.</p><p>His heart sank, the thoughts he’d been having—how nice this was, how glad he was to have Duke back—popped like soap bubbles.</p><p>This was some kind of smuggling venture, and Duke had dragged Nathan into it.</p><p>It hurt more than he wanted to admit that, at best, Duke hadn’t thought about what it would mean for Nathan to get caught up in something like that and at worst, he had known and hadn’t cared at all.</p><p><em>It’s a shitty job, </em>Duke’s words echoed back, this time stinging like lemon juice in a papercut.</p><p>He’d told Duke that he hated his job—and he did—but that didn’t’ mean he wanted to lose it because he inadvertently got involved in smuggling.  Why hadn’t Duke <em>said something? </em>If he’d asked…</p><p>Nathan wasn’t sure what he’d have said or done if Duke had asked.</p><p>The boat was close enough now that Nathan could see that its lights were on. The coast guard was trying to stop them, and Nathan knew that the Rouge wouldn’t be able to outrun them if Duke was stupid enough to try.</p><p>Thankfully, he wasn’t, and the engines ground into silence so they were once again floating on calm waters.</p><p>Duke joined him on the deck. “Nate—”</p><p>“Don’t, Duke,” Nathan said, biting out the words quickly so Duke couldn’t see how hurt he was.</p><p>“This isn’t—”</p><p>“Stop.”</p><p>Duke did, and they waited together while they pulled up alongside the Rouge.</p><p>“We have reasonable suspicion to search this vessel,” One man called up. “Please stand aside and allow us to do so.”</p><p>Nathan heard Duke groan, but he didn’t protest as they climbed aboard and started poking around the deck.</p><p>One of them stood in front of Duke, glaring. “Duke Crocker?”</p><p>“Yes?” Duke asked. His face was steely, jaw tight.</p><p>“Is this your boat?”</p><p>“Last I checked.”</p><p>Nathan wanted to tell him to cooperate, not to argue. If Duke had nothing to hide, then there wouldn’t be any trouble.</p><p>But the look on the coastie’s face told Nathan that this wasn’t going to be that easy.</p><p>A million thoughts raced through Nathan’s head while Duke continued to be casually belligerent to the coast guard. This was going to end badly.</p><p>He wondered how Duke had handled this kind of thing in the past, before he’d come back to Haven.</p><p>He wondered if Duke had wanted Nathan to be here, or if he just happened to have a boat full of contraband and hadn’t thought it would be a problem for their fun little outing.</p><p>He also thought of his father bearing down on him, taking his case files for no reason. <em>I hate my job. </em></p><p>He looked at the smudge on the horizon that was his stupid, insular hometown, imagining that he could see the roofline of the station. The chief didn’t want him to solve crimes. He was determined for Nathan to be bad at that job.</p><p>But maybe he could be good at a different one.</p><p>“Sir, can I have a word with you?” He said to the guy interrogating Duke.</p><p>The man looked over as if he was noticing Nathan for the first time. “What?”</p><p>Nathan jerked his head away from Duke. “I just need a minute.”</p><p>Duke’s eyes were boring into his back, but Nathan ignored him as he led the man to the other side of the deck, just far enough that Duke could only barely hear them.</p><p>He reached into his pocket and pulled out his badge, just enough to show the man he had it. “This is a big ask, but I’d appreciate it if you didn’t search the boat.”</p><p>“Excuse me? Crocker is—”</p><p>“Is a delivery boy,” Nathan said. “I’m undercover investigating his suppliers, and he’s damn near leading me right to them.”</p><p>The guy nodded slowly. “Really?”</p><p>“I’m close,” Nathan said. “But a raid right now might—”</p><p>“Might scare the suppliers,” The coastie finished for him. “Right. Someone I can call at your station to confirm that?”</p><p>“Well…” Here was the part that required the most acting, but strangely the words came easily. This wasn’t a reach. “The chief is my father. He uh, well he doesn’t prioritize these kinds of cases, but it would mean a lot for the department—”</p><p>“You’re investigating behind his back?” He asked.</p><p>“Not, uh, not exactly. I’m just… exploring a possibility in my free time. Trying to do some good.”</p><p>“Can’t imagine working for my old man,” He said, and Nathan thought there was a note of sympathy in his voice. “And you say you’ve almost got Crocker?”</p><p>“Yes.” The lie came so easily.</p><p>“Thanks for letting me know.” He called out to one of the guys who was just approaching Duke’s hold. “Clarence! We’re letting ‘em off with a warning. Pack up.”</p><p>Ten minutes later, the boat was disappearing on the horizon, and Duke was staring at Nathan with his mouth wide open, and Nathan’s anger and hurt cooled somewhat, because he was pretty sure this was the first time Duke Crocker had ever been speechless.</p><hr/><p>Duke stared at Nathan, trying to suppress the quiet wonder in his mind.</p><p><em>Nathan </em>had saved Duke’s ass.</p><p><em>Detective Wuornos </em>had lied to the coast guard and gotten them to leave.</p><p>“Holy… how did you <em>do </em>that?” Duke asked.</p><p>Nathan’s gaze was closed off and even. “Told them I was undercover investigating you.”</p><p>“Wow,” Duke whistled between his teeth, turning to make sure the boat was really leaving. “Is… you were lying, right?”</p><p>Nathan rolled his eyes. “Yes, Duke, I was lying.”</p><p>“Wow… thank you. Nate you have no idea—”</p><p>“I didn’t do it to be nice.” Nathan’s voice was cold, almost scathing. “You set me up, Duke,” He snapped.</p><p>“No, I swear, Nate—”</p><p>“I’m not going to believe you.”</p><p>Duke flinched away. He hated this. He had seen the way Nathan relaxed, the way some of the tension had dropped out of his shoulders while they’d talked and joked around, and now it was all back.</p><p>He stared back at Duke with wounded, guarded eyes.</p><p>But Duke wouldn’t give up before he’d at least said what he wanted to say. “I didn’t want you to do that. I didn’t think this would happen.”</p><p>Nathan’s jaw flexed, but he didn’t say anything.</p><p>“Thank you,” Duke said quietly, sincerely. “You really—”</p><p>“I want a cut,” Nathan said.</p><p>Duke froze. “What?”</p><p>“Someone’s paying you to haul whatever’s down there,” Nathan said. “And you wouldn’t have been able to deliver it without me, so I want a cut.”</p><p>“Nate, what is this about?” Duke asked. “You’re—”</p><p><em>A cop, </em>He wanted to say. <em>Good. Not a part of this. </em></p><p>“I’m the guy who saved your ass,” He said. “And I want a cut of the profits.”</p><p>“Bullshit,” Duke said. “This isn’t you Nate—”</p><p>“You don’t know me, Duke!” Nathan snapped. “You don’t get to leave for more than a decade and come back acting like everything is the same.”</p><p>There it was. The anger Duke remembered; the whip-sharp voice that meant Duke had struck a nerve.</p><p>“It’s like I said,” Nathan continued bitterly. “I hate my job. I saw the list that morning; you’re looking for a partner. Here I am.”</p><p>“Uh, Nate—”</p><p>Duke wasn’t even sure what to say, how to explain all this. It wasn’t like he had gotten into this business because he liked it so much. It was circumstances, shitty circumstances and that goddamned town, and the way the world had stacked up so that Duke had never really had a choice.</p><p>And Nathan had always had choices, and he’d always chosen wrong. Nathan who went to college and could have left Haven, but instead he came back as a fucking cop—<br/>“What’s my damn cut, Duke?”</p><p>Duke gave up trying to act like Nathan’s old friend. If Nathan wanted to play criminal, well that was a role Duke was very, very used to. “That’s cute, Nathan, but you don’t get a cut for one little cover up. Help me finish the job and then we’ll talk money.”</p><p>He expected Nathan to balk. A one-time lie for an old friend was one thing, but actually running a job, knowing full well it was illegal; Duke didn’t think Nathan had that in him.</p><p>But Nathan stuck his chin out and up, his stance widening ever so slightly, stubbornness personified. “Fine.”</p><p><em>You can’t be serious, </em>Duke thought, but the look in Nathan’s eyes told him he was.</p><p>So Duke sighed; he’d get to the bottom of this somehow, or find a way to talk Nathan down. If nothing else, this guaranteed that Nathan wouldn’t be able to never speak to him again. “Alright then. Welcome aboard, I guess.”</p><p>Nathan’s smile was twisted and unhappy. “When do we start?”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. I Compose Myself For You</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This took a while, I know, but in my defense, it's really really long. Comments and feedback are much appreciated. Thanks for reading!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>As soon as he walked through the door, Nathan dropped his head against the frame, hoping that maybe the dull vibration through his skull might shake some sense into him.</p>
<p>
  <em>What the fuck did I just do. </em>
</p>
<p>The answer, of course, was that he’d committed a felony, but it went further back than that. He’d agreed to go on the damn trip. He’d trusted Duke, a mistake he really ought to have stopped making by now. He’d let himself have a good time. He’d let Duke lie to him.</p>
<p>And then he’d lied to the goddamn coast guard.</p>
<p>Duke looked out for himself, only himself. Why couldn’t Nathan?</p>
<p>Nathan reminded himself that Duke didn’t deserve it, that Duke had been perfectly willing to let Nathan get caught up in the mess of his life, his so-called job, without thinking about the damage. Not that it did any good. The damage was done. Nathan had already saved Duke’s sorry ass.</p>
<p>He could have left Duke to rot in coast guard custody until the feds showed up, could have said that he had no idea, could have called the chief to bail him out.</p>
<p>The thought brought bile into his throat. His father had been half the reason he’d lied in the first place. He was fairly confident that if he’d gone to prison, he’d have rather rotted there than called his father.</p>
<p>He remembered the files, months of hard work and digging in the bowels of the station, old Herald articles, the town records office, all of it swept into his father’s arms, and probably his garbage can.</p>
<p>There had been satisfaction in telling Duke he wanted a cut of the profits. Something sharp and hard that had grown in his chest, a good kind of pain. No one understood pain quite like Nathan Wuornos.</p>
<p>He’d liked the way Duke stared at him, shocked. For a few moments, he’d really been able to read Duke. He’d surprised him. Nathan could remember the dozens of pranks he’d tried to pull on Duke, never quite succeeding because he was impossible to catch off-guard.</p>
<p>Duke had always been good at getting Nathan off-guard, at tricking him. It had started with the tacks when they were kids, but it continued until the day Duke had sailed away from Haven.</p>
<p>That had caught Nathan off guard too.</p>
<p>But now he was back, back and somehow he’d become Nathan’s problem all over again. Somehow, Duke had managed to twist all this up so that Nathan was in far over his head. Exactly like when they were kids.</p>
<p>
  <em>Nothing fucking changes. </em>
</p>
<p>He’d watched Duke’s eyes go calculating and distant, had seen him weighing the pros and cons of letting Nathan in on whatever he was doing, and he had seen that fucking smile.</p>
<p><em>That’s cute, </em>Duke had said. It stung, that word, a particular kind of sharp that only Duke would know how to deal out so effectively. <em>Help me finish the job and then we’ll talk money. </em></p>
<p>Nathan knew that tone.</p>
<p><em>Leave it, Geoff, </em>Duke had said all those years ago. <em>Nate won’t jump. </em>But he’d been smiling. The same smile.</p>
<p>They’d been standing at the top of Rasmussen Bluff, a thirty-foot cliff on the edge of town. They’d all heard older kids laugh about jumping it, had heard adults warn them not to, and so had wandered out to see it for themselves.</p>
<p>Geoff had been the one to start it; he usually was. He liked goading Nathan, because back then Nathan had been the only one of them who was shorter than him.</p>
<p>Bill had laughed with Geoff but hadn’t really taken part.</p>
<p>It was Duke’s words that had pushed him to jump. <em>Nate won’t jump. </em></p>
<p>He’d used the same tone when he’d told Nathan he’d have to finish the job with him, like he knew Nathan would never do it.</p>
<p>And once again, Duke’s words had sent him over the edge of a cliff.</p>
<p>Now that he was alone, it was the same as hitting the freezing ocean had been. Suddenly clear-headed, Nathan realized he’d done something unbelievably, impossibly stupid.</p>
<p>He was used to cold water, Nathan didn’t think he’d ever been in the ocean when it wasn’t freezing, unless he counted when he couldn’t feel it, but in November it was a breathless kind of freezing, knocking the air from his lungs in one sharp second.</p>
<p>The moment his head had punched through the surface, he’d been furious. Duke and Geoff had goaded him over that edge, he’d never have done it if Duke hadn’t said that he wouldn’t.</p>
<p>If Duke hadn’t dismissed him so easily.</p>
<p>Now he realized it had been a challenge. It was a challenge when Duke told him he wouldn’t jump, and a challenge when Duke said he’d have to finish the job if he wanted to get paid.</p>
<p>“Why?” Nathan groaned, sliding down the door to sit on his threadbare rug and mope.</p>
<p>In response, the foundation of his old house shifted, creaking ominously.</p>
<p>Nathan sighed. He felt old. He felt exhausted.</p>
<p>He felt like he’d just jumped off a cliff, been battered on the rocks, and then been dumped unceremoniously on shore. </p>
<p>Truthfully—Nathan stood up and went to the kitchen to pour himself a drink; if he was going to be truthful he wouldn’t do it sober—he wasn’t sure if he was more concerned about breaking more laws, or the fact that he’d have to spend time with Duke to do it.</p>
<p>Because the thing that stood out most to Nathan about the day at the cliff was not Duke’s backhanded way of getting him to jump, it was the fact that he’d leapt in right after Nathan.</p>
<hr/>
<p>Duke paced his kitchen, frenetic energy coursing through his veins.</p>
<p>He was an idiot.</p>
<p>Nathan was an idiot.</p>
<p>Had he thought—briefly!—about bringing Nathan on as his new partner? Yes. Briefly. And it hadn’t held up to more than a second’s scrutiny. Nathan had been casual about the list, sure, but Duke knew—or at least he’d thought—it hadn’t meant anything.</p>
<p>Nathan was a cop, and even if he’d wanted to do something about Duke’s search for a business partner, he’d never have been able to say anything.</p>
<p>
  <em>Hey Chief, we have to look into Duke, I saw the list of people he wants to work with when he made breakfast after I slept over. </em>
</p>
<p>Duke stopped pacing, glaring at his galley like it was somehow at fault for this whole mess. It was a death by a thousand mistakes. If only he hadn’t gone to Mac’s that night. </p>
<p>If only Nathan hadn’t gotten drunk and looked at him like that.</p>
<p>If only he hadn’t come back and found Nathan.</p>
<p>If only he hadn’t come back.</p>
<p>His phone rang, rescuing him from continuing to wallow. He had business to attend to, with or without his new “partner”.</p>
<p>“Yes?”</p>
<p>“Do you have an estimated time of delivery?” The lackey on the other end of the line asked, clearly already annoyed.</p>
<p>“Next weekend,” Duke said impulsively. A tight deadline would make it harder for Nathan, might even end whatever stupid plan he had for good. “Meet at the usual drop site.”</p>
<p>It was a simple run to Canada to drop off cargo. Duke wasn’t sure what it was and wasn’t planning on asking. <br/>Whether or not Nathan asked would probably be the first test.</p>
<p>Duke wasn’t sure whether or not he wanted him to pass.</p>
<p>There was something to be said about a partner you could trust, and the only way to trust someone was to know them. Duke knew Nathan. He knew the stubborn kid he’d been and saw the raw energy and obstinance that he’d become. </p>
<p>But Duke had thought he’d known Evi. He’d trusted her, and that had landed him here, scrounging through old contacts and trying to rebuild a life.</p>
<p>Comparing Nathan and Evi side by side was stupid, but as partners went—Duke refused to think of the multiple connotations for that word—they could not be any more different.</p>
<p>Evi was a professional, she knew her way around a con, was smart, but more than that she made the people around her <em>feel </em>smart, even when she was duping them.</p>
<p><em>What’s the easiest way to steal a guy’s wallet? </em>She had asked him once.</p>
<p>Duke had shrugged. <em>Hit him and steal it while he’s down? </em>It wasn’t his style but it sure was easy.</p>
<p>Evi had laughed indulgently. <em>You make him give it to you with a smile on his face. </em></p>
<p>And Evi could. In the end, Duke had fallen for everything about her just as thoroughly as one of her marks.</p>
<p>And somehow he’d found his new partner in Nathan Wuornos. Nathan, the only person who might have been able to convince him to stay in Haven. Nathan, who was the center point of every good memory Duke had in this fucking town.</p>
<p>Nathan, who hated him so much it had apparently turned him into some kind of wannabe criminal.</p>
<p>He wondered what Evi would have told him. He wished he didn’t care, but no one could put a team together like Evi, and she would have had opinions about Nathan.</p>
<p>“He’s a risk,” Duke said, as if he were trying to convince her. “But he’s…”</p>
<p>Duke couldn’t think of anything that made Nathan an asset on a job like this. He wasn’t sure if it was because he didn’t know this new version of Nathan or because there wasn’t anything.</p>
<p><em>He’s a cop, </em>an imaginary Evi argued back. <em>A cop that doesn’t like you. Personally. </em></p>
<p>He wondered why he’d made his mental Evi sound a little jealous.</p>
<p>“He wants to help,” Duke said. “This was <em>his </em>idea.”</p>
<p><em>You shouldn’t let marks have ideas, </em>Evi said.</p>
<p>“He’s not a mark.”</p>
<p><em>So he’s an equal partner? </em>Evi asked. Duke pictured her sly little smile, the one that meant he was about to walk into a trap and enjoy it.</p>
<p>“No. He’s—”</p>
<p>Evi would have said that there were only two things to be, a partner or a mark, but Duke knew better. Duke knew there were bystanders.</p>
<p>Was that what he thought Nathan was? Someone who’d stand by and let something he didn’t agree with happen?</p>
<p>No.</p>
<p><em>So make him agree with it, </em>Evi said.</p>
<p>It was a very <em>her </em>tactic. Not the kind of thing Duke would pull, but then there was a reason he’d liked Evi so much. She wasn’t like him, she was bolder. She’d loved calling herself a con artist.</p>
<p>Duke had been content to be a smuggler, but she’d shown him that there was a wider world of crime he could be a part of.</p>
<p><em>And then she ditched you on a dock in South America, </em>A snide voice reminded him.</p>
<p>So maybe Duke wasn’t a good judge of character. Maybe he didn’t know what the fuck he was doing.</p>
<p>But he’d invited Nathan on the job, so now he had to deal with the consequences of having him there.</p>
<p>It was a quick run north, cross the border, drop the cargo off, and leave. Simple.</p>
<p>Even Nathan couldn’t mess it up. Hell, Nathan might mess it up less than some of the people Duke had considered partnering with. The real question was whether or not Nathan was worse than no one. And whether Nathan would be any good on a job that involved something more difficult than carrying boxes and obfuscating the coast guard.</p>
<p>Well… Nathan had been very good at getting by the coast guard.</p>
<p><em>You have a cop in your pocket, </em>The Evi voice chimed in.</p>
<p>Duke’s stomach turned.</p>
<p>
  <em>You know he lied. He admitted to lying. You could ruin him with this. </em>
</p>
<p>“I’m going insane,” Duke said. Apparently, that was what Nathan did to him. He paced over to the cabinet and grabbed a bottle at random, skipping a glass and pouring it straight down his throat.</p>
<p>He choked on a bitter gulp of straight vermouth, spitting as much of it as he could into the sink.</p>
<p>If nothing else, it shocked him out of his thoughts. No matter what Evi would have done—and partially because it wasn’t what Evi would have done—Duke was not going to leverage this against Nathan. That wasn’t how he entered partnerships, and besides, this was <em>Nathan. </em></p>
<p>Whether either of them was able to admit it, they were each other’s oldest friends, and Duke wanted to believe that meant something.</p>
<p>The pragmatic part of Duke’s brain, developed over years of running cons and skating through less than legal situations, noted that Nathan simply didn’t have the experience to pull one over on him. Duke could acknowledge that his blind spots were people he cared about—Evi being the worst example—but Nathan didn’t have any of Evi’s skill.</p>
<p>If nothing else, Nathan was a safe bet for the time being. Hell, it was more than likely that Nathan would turn up his nose after the first job.</p>
<p>Yes, that made sense. Nathan would have his flirt with lawlessness and then settle back into his comfortable life, like a rumspringa for boring cops.</p>
<p>Duke was happy to help with that. Nathan clearly needed to lighten up, and Duke could use an extra pair of hands on this one. Nathan would get his cut—even if Duke didn’t give him as much as he’d technically earned—and they’d part ways as unlikely friends. Again. Hopefully.</p>
<p>Satisfied, Duke went back to his liquor cabinet and selected a lower shelf—but not bottom, Duke didn’t drink bottom shelf liquor anymore—bottle of whiskey and took the time to pour himself a glass. This was all fine.</p>
<p>So fine, in fact, that he could convince himself that it was all part of his original plan, that it had been his idea all along, not something he’d dismissed moments after considering it. It wasn’t a spur of the moment impulse of Nathan’s, because that would undoubtedly fail. No, it was Duke’s master plot, a new way to have fun for a while before he settled down to do real business.</p>
<hr/>
<p>Something about the tension of the fishing trip made work the next day seem especially boring. Nathan kept his office door open, but only because closing it would have been suspicious. He didn’t want anyone to come see him, but leaving it open served the double purpose of not being suspicious and challenging his father.</p>
<p>They had not spoken since Nathan had stormed out of the station. It might have been a childish move, but there was no other way to fight with his father, who was so deft at making himself the victim that unless Nathan went lower, there was no way to get at him.</p>
<p>It was exhausting.</p>
<p>
  <em>Lots of jobs in the world, Nate.</em>
</p>
<p>Duke’s words echoed back at him, but when he looked around at his office he couldn’t really imagine leaving for good. Sure he wanted to most days, but that didn’t mean he could really picture it. Not in any way that felt like more than a silly daydream.</p>
<p>He looked at his office with its ugly yellow paint, dark wood trim, and inexplicable second desk, and couldn’t imagine never coming back. These linoleum floors and dirty windows were as much of a part of his childhood as Duke had been, the days when he’d come here after school because his father forgot to pick him up, or because he’d remembered but couldn’t take him home because he had more to do.</p>
<p>Those days, when he hadn’t simply left to wander the streets with Duke, he’d sat on this desk or the couch to imagine doing his father’s job, which had really seemed more exciting when he was a kid.</p>
<p>In fact, now that Nathan was a cop in Haven, he wondered why his father’s job had so often taken him away from the work of raising him. What had the chief had to do back then? Nathan had seen case files from back then, and there’d been plenty of crimes, but it wasn’t like his father had done anything to solve any of them. They were all cold.</p>
<p>Nathan couldn’t decide if he was glad his father had apparently been no better at his job than he thought Nathan was, or upset that his father hadn’t bothered to raise him in favor of a career he wasn’t any good at.</p>
<p>He didn’t want it to matter.</p>
<p>He wanted to be the kid who’d sat on his father’s desk and thought he was some kind of a hero, the last line of defense between their small town and some great evil.</p>
<p>Nathan almost laughed at that. His father must have had talked big when Nathan was younger if that was what he’d thought he’d be coming into. So far, the greatest evil Nathan had faced were petty con artists who scammed tourists, and sometimes Nathan thought the tourists deserved it for falling so easily.</p>
<p>He rubbed his face, turning back to the paperwork on his desk. Each page represented a call he’d missed yesterday, requests for investigation into mundane things. The only one that required any action was a call about a lost dog that Nathan turned over to animal control.</p>
<p>He missed his cold cases. The chief hadn’t taken all of them, just the Colorado kid file, but that had been the one he was most interested in, the one he knew his father had worked and failed to solve. He’d had so many pieces, things that didn’t fit together, questions that had more questions for answers.</p>
<p>And it was all gone. He wanted to take something back and wondered if that feeling was why Duke did what he did. Haven, Nathan knew, had taken plenty from Duke. It made sense that he might want to drag it down with him.</p>
<p>Was he going to drag Nathan too? No. Nathan was angry at Duke for a lot of things, but he knew that he hadn’t been dragged anywhere. If something happened, it would be because Nathan had followed him of his own free will.</p>
<p>Suddenly, the potent mix of panic and fury he’d felt every moment since leaving Duke’s boat snuffed out like a candle. He breathed.</p>
<p>He had chosen this. He had not thought about it, or weighed his options, but the few choices he’d made—all of them carefully considered, made because they were the smartest or most necessary, not because they were what he wanted—had led him <em>here</em>. His choices had brought him to a desk in an office he didn’t want, a job he did in the vain hope that his father might tell him he was good at it.</p>
<p>Nathan smiled. He was going to be a criminal, a smuggler like Duke, and he was going to get away with it by doing something he’d always been excellent at, willingly or not: avoiding his father’s attention.</p>
<hr/>
<p>Duke could only hope that he looked as confident as Nathan did when he walked up to his boat. The worst part was that it wasn’t the reckless confidence Duke expected from Nathan, the one that had sent Nathan scrambling up trees until the branches snapped underneath him when they were kids. Nathan hated to be told he couldn’t do things; it made him idiotically bold, furiously determined to prove that he could.</p>
<p>This was different. This was…this was really something else.  Duke liked it. He didn’t want to like it, but there was something affecting about seeing Nathan walking smoothly across the docks, the dying sunset light playing across the sharp bones of his face. Everything about Nathan was sharp now, knees and elbows and shoulders and cheekbones.</p>
<p>Duke liked that too.</p>
<p>“When do we start?” Nathan asked as soon as he was close enough to be heard.</p>
<p>“Friday night, late,” Duke said. “We’ll sail overnight, unload in the morning, and be gone before anyone knew we were there.”</p>
<p>“And when do we get paid?”</p>
<p>“Eyes on the prize, eh, Nate?”</p>
<p>Nathan glared back at him evenly.</p>
<p>“We’ll meet the buyer in town. He’ll have our money, and then we’ll tell him where we left his cargo.”</p>
<p>“Sounds easy.”</p>
<p>“That’s usually a problem,” Duke said. “But this shouldn’t be. I’ve worked with these guys before.”</p>
<p>“You trust them?”</p>
<p>Duke shrugged noncommittally. “Trust is flexible.”</p>
<p>Nathan’s frown deepened. “Duke—”</p>
<p>“Believe it or not, Nathan,” Duke snapped, “I’d also rather not get caught. They won’t sell us out because it won’t help them to. That’s as close to trust as I get.”</p>
<p><em>It’s more than I could say for you, </em>Duke thought. The idea that Nathan might try to sell him out for a little of his father’s approval had occurred to him. In this case, for once, Duke wanted to believe in trust.</p>
<p>He wanted to believe that—even though they were more than ten years in the past—all the times Duke had been there for Nathan when his father wasn’t would balance out.</p>
<p>Nathan didn’t look convinced.</p>
<p>“If you don’t like it, you don’t have to do this,” Duke reminded him, trying and failing to keep the irritation out of his voice.</p>
<p>Nathan squared his shoulders, and there it was, the reckless confidence Duke was so familiar with. It was strange, and more endearing than Duke would have liked, seeing that childish expression on Nathan’s grown-up face.</p>
<p>“I said I was in,” Nathan said, his voice pitched slightly lower than normal, as if he were trying to sound very final and sure. The effect was more that of someone who’d woken up with a sore throat, but Duke chose not to tease him for it.</p>
<p>“So, what—”</p>
<p>“Do you want to come aboard?” Duke asked. He was tired of shouting down at Nathan like a weird maritime Juliet, and he wasn’t keen to discuss any business details where they might be overheard.</p>
<p>For a second, Duke watched indecision tear at Nathan, but he must have ignored it, because he jumped onto the gangplank and joined Duke on deck.</p>
<p>“You know, I have a pretty strict policy about talking to cops,” Duke said conversationally as he led the way to the galley.</p>
<p>“What is it?” Nathan asked.</p>
<p>“Don’t.”</p>
<p>Nathan pulled his badge off his belt and put it on the table between them. He didn’t say anything, but Duke could tell that the gesture meant something to him, even if to Duke it was only that, a gesture.</p>
<p>“What are we delivering?”</p>
<p>Duke laughed. There it was. Nathan had failed the first test.</p>
<p>Somehow it was kind of cute. “That’s the question we don’t ask.”</p>
<p>Nathan balked. “But—”</p>
<p>Duke let out a sigh. “Nate… look, think whatever you want, but there are things I don’t deal in. I don’t smuggle weapons; I avoid hard drugs.”</p>
<p>He didn’t add that this was due less to some moral boundary and more to the fact that those were volatile industries, full of dangerous and temperamental people that Duke didn’t want to cross. </p>
<p>“So what <em>do</em> you ‘deal in’?” There was a bite of mockery in Nathan’s words.</p>
<p>“Stolen goods,” Duke said without flinching. He watched Nathan’s face carefully, looking for any sign of discomfort, and chance that he wanted to bolt.</p>
<p>He didn’t see anything, in fact, his words seemed to make Nathan more confident. “Okay.”</p>
<p>Well, so much for that little test.</p>
<p>“What else do I need to know?” Nathan asked.</p>
<p>“Don’t get caught,” Duke said. He picked up Nathan’s badge, twirling it between his fingers like an unwieldy playing card. “But if we do…”</p>
<p>“Don’t know if that’ll work twice,” Nathan said.</p>
<p>“Maybe you should start an investigation,” Duke said without thinking. He didn’t want Nathan looking into him, and he definitely hadn’t intended the inflection he’d used, which contained some kind of instinctive innuendo that Duke didn’t want to dwell on.</p>
<p>He tried to recover. “You know, make it legitimate.”</p>
<p>“Chief doesn’t like it when I investigate outside his orders,” Nathan said, and there was cutting bitterness in his voice.</p>
<p>Duke nodded and didn’t ask about it. Someday, maybe, they’d be on the kind of terms where Duke could ask about everything he was missing in Nathan’s life, but somehow, even though they were working together, Duke felt further away from him.</p>
<p>He stared at the hard line of Nathan’s shoulders rather than meeting his eyes. “So I’ll see you on Friday night?”</p>
<p>For a second, Nathan’s eyes flicked into something like sadness, but he recovered so fast Duke wondered if he’d imagined it.</p>
<p>“Yeah.”</p>
<p>“You don’t…” He wasn’t sure what to say, only that he hadn’t meant to shoo Nathan out. He just didn’t know what to say, and he could see the tension in Nathan, could tell that Nate didn’t know any better than he did. “Want to stay for a drink?”</p>
<p>“I have to work tomorrow,” Nathan said stiffly.</p>
<p>Duke wasn’t in the mood to cajole him.</p>
<p>Nathan stood up and walked towards the stairs, but he paused before he left. “Do you remember jumping Rasmussen bluff?”</p>
<p>“Yeah.” Duke paused. “You jumped first.”</p>
<p>He remembered a lot about that day, actually. He remembered that it was fall, and the water was cold, and Nathan had the lowest pain tolerance of anyone Duke had ever met but he still jumped. He remembered that Geoff had taunted Nathan, had said something about how Nathan “wasn’t man enough” to jump.</p>
<p>That was when Duke had stepped in, had tried to talk Geoff down, had said Nathan shouldn’t jump.</p>
<p>Nathan had already been running, throwing himself off the cliff and into the ocean with a look of panic and stubbornness that had sent Duke running after him, right over the edge.</p>
<p>Duke still remembered how cold the water was, and how it made Nathan’s cheeks red. He remembered that his eyes had been so bright, shining and blue like the waves around them. He remembered it being a little hard to breathe when he was staring at Nathan, and that he didn’t think it had anything to do with the freezing water.</p>
<p>Nathan’s eyes weren’t shining. They were shadowed now as he looked back at Duke and nodded once, as though that answer satisfied him. “Goodnight.”</p>
<p>Suddenly Duke was a teenager again, his breath not quite coming in, all because Nathan Wuornos said goodnight to him, and the idea of having good nights with Nathan had lingered at the sides of his mind for so long that they wedged themselves back into place now that he was in Haven again.</p>
<p><em>You came here looking for a partner, </em>an annoying voice reminded him. He grabbed a bottle of whiskey and drank before the voice could tell him that he’d found one.</p>
<hr/>
<p>Nathan spent his workday very determinedly not looking up the consequences for smuggling stolen goods. He also made sure that he didn’t pull up Duke’s record. He didn’t want any reminder that Duke had been caught in the past, because that meant that they might both be caught.</p>
<p>In fact, the only reminder of his plans with Duke was the leave form he had on his desk, half-completed. He couldn’t make himself finish it, caught on the question of <em>why </em>he needed this time off.</p>
<p>
  <em>Work-Related</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Medical </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Personal </em>
</p>
<p>Personal opened too many doors, but he didn’t want to lie about something medical, which would only call too much of the chief’s attention on him. The answers spun around until he couldn’t even look at the form anymore.</p>
<p>Instead, he focused on a new vandalism case at the high school, which Nathan knew was almost certainly the fault of Kevin Whitley and a handful of his friends, but he also knew that the kid’s father was one of the selectmen and consequences seemed to magically roll off of him.</p>
<p>It bothered Nathan more than he wanted to admit that he wouldn’t be able to pursue this. Granted, Nathan had no fondness for the courtyard wall at Haven High, but he couldn’t understand the necessity of spray painting—surprisingly anatomically correct—penises all over it. But Kevin would get away with it; his father would use his friendship with the chief and ability to get Nathan, or even Garland, fired in order to make sure that no consequences reached his son.</p>
<p>It left a bitter taste in his mouth.</p>
<p>“Any suspects?” The chief asked.</p>
<p>“One.”</p>
<p>“Well?”</p>
<p>“Kevin Whitley.”</p>
<p>“You have a witness?”</p>
<p>Nathan shook his head. “Just word of mouth, but everyone’s saying the same thing.”</p>
<p>“It’s a high school Nathan, everything’s a rumor.”</p>
<p>“Well they did it this morning,” Nathan said. “No one was around, no witnesses.”</p>
<p>“Then you have nothing.” The chief left, snapping the door closed behind him.</p>
<p>Nathan stood up and opened the door, chewing on his irritation. He remembered being in high school, he remembered being in that exact high school. The small classes with teachers who’d also taught his parents, the kids he’d known without knowing because he’d heard about them.</p>
<p>Reputations weren’t always lies. When something had happened, teachers and administrators had been quick to look at Duke, which had seemed unfair to Nathan until he realized that more often than not, Duke had done the misbehavior in question. But just as often, Nathan, Bill, and/or Geoff were as involved as Duke, and they rarely faced the same consequences.</p>
<p>Still, back in the day, had the cops come around asking who, exactly, would put a snake in someone’s locker, or tape the principal’s door shut from the inside while he was at lunch, they would have all pointed at Duke, Nathan, and the McShaw boys, and they’d have been right.</p>
<p>Kevin Whitley came from an upstanding, old Haven family, but that didn’t mean his classmates were wrong about him, it just meant that he was a little shit with enough money to keep his ass clean.</p>
<p>He wondered why, exactly, this bothered him so much. He figured it was probably the fact that he was still trying to be decent at his job, as if he might quietly make up for crimes his father would never even hear about by solving the ones he did.</p>
<p>Nathan didn’t think it worked like that. In fact, he knew it didn’t. And if his father was so interested in seeing Nathan solve crimes, he should let him do his damn job and interview a high schooler, or keep his cold case files.</p>
<p>The truth, Nathan was realizing, was that Garland Wuornos didn’t give a damn about solving crimes, he just wanted to maintain the status quo.</p>
<p>Nathan was sick of it, and maybe there were better ways to handle it than joining up with Duke and smuggling stolen whatever in and out of the country, but he didn’t think he gave a shit. He liked his plan.</p>
<p>He crumpled the leave form into a ball and threw it away. </p>
<p>Maybe some part of him was still the teenager that had wanted to go with Duke when he’d talked about leaving. Maybe part of him thought he could rewrite ten years of his life and go back to the night when Duke had asked him to come with.</p>
<p><em>You jumped first</em>. Duke remembered the day on the cliffs.</p>
<p>Nathan remembered the night in his bedroom, when Duke had said “Let’s go tonight. Right now, Nate. Let’s go.”</p>
<p>Duke had jumped first.</p>
<p>Nathan hadn’t followed.</p>
<p>Duke hadn’t asked again.</p>
<p>But now they were going. Tonight, Nathan would board Duke’s ship and they would sail away from Haven together.</p>
<p>The part of him, however small it was, that was still a scared, sad teenager ached for this chance, even if it was just for one night, the idea that he was finally doing it.</p>
<p>The part of him that had grown up, that had worked so hard to be seen the way he was, knew that putting a foot aboard that ship was a slippery slope.</p>
<p>But it was too late to back down.</p>
<p>The rest of the day blurred as he tracked down Kevin Whitley’s school record, and before he could even call to discuss speaking with him, found that the school was no longer interested in pursuing charges, because a mysterious donor had paid to have the wall cleaned and repaired.</p>
<p>The only thing that kept Nathan from grinding his teeth about that was the fact that tonight he wouldn’t have to be a cop anymore. He’d be free to do whatever he wanted, and for once, he’d be the one without consequences.</p>
<p>He spent most of the time as he waited for it to get late enough to go to the docks pacing his house, wearing a hole in his already threadbare living room rug. He barely ate dinner, picking apathetically at pasta with store bought sauce he was pretty sure had been in his cabinet for the better part of a year. It tasted like nothing and did nothing to ease the flutter of anxiety in his stomach.</p>
<p><em>It’s because you don’t want to get caught, </em>He told himself. <em>It’s not butterflies. It’s not… </em></p>
<p>It wasn’t what it had always been with Duke, because it was ten years later, and Nathan was over him. Nathan had always been over him, because he’d never really been into him. Not really.</p>
<p><em>Liar. </em>The voice was low, rough and a little gravelly and too familiar. Nathan could picture the smile that went with that voice, and it made his hands curl into fists.</p>
<p>He couldn’t trust Duke. He wasn’t doing this for Duke. This had nothing to do with Duke. Nathan wanted the money, he wanted to pull one over on his father, and Duke was a means to an end, just like Nathan had been a means to an end for him.</p>
<p>
  <em>Fair’s fair; we’ll use each other. </em>
</p>
<p>Yes, that was the anger he was used to, it was much better than whatever the other thing was. Much easier. Much more comfortable. He let it settle, let it carry him the rest of the night until it was time to go.</p>
<p>He walked to the marina rather than risk leaving his car there. Haven was cool and empty, lit intermittently with dirty streetlamps. He liked it like this. It made the weary old town look mysterious, and if Nathan was a little more sentimental, magical.</p>
<p>The docks were also empty, but better lit. The few houseboats and yachts bobbed aimlessly in their slips, most dark and unused. The rest were commercial, fishing boats that would be active again in only a few hours and chartered tour boats that wouldn’t be popular until much later.  </p>
<p>“I thought you weren’t going to show,” Duke called out, too loud in the still space.</p>
<p>“Told you I would,” Nathan replied stiffly, not quite loud enough.</p>
<p>“You’re late,” Duke said.</p>
<p>“You weren’t specific,” Nathan shot back, irritation rising.</p>
<p>Duke shrugged amicably, leaving Nathan with the distinct feeling that he’d lost a game he hadn’t known he was playing. “Ready to go?”</p>
<p>“Yes.”</p>
<p>“There’s coffee in the galley. It’ll be a while before we can sleep. Put your stuff in your room.”</p>
<p>The idea that somehow, after only spending one unfortunate night here, Nathan had a room on Duke’s boat made his cheeks prickle with heat he didn’t want to define.</p>
<p>The room was somehow smaller than Nathan remembered it. If there was no furniture in it at all, Nathan was fairly sure he could have laid down, but his hair and toes would have been brushing the walls. The cot was the same narrow, ugly thing Nathan remembered. Nathan tossed his bag on it and pulled his phone out, texting his father quickly.</p>
<p>
  <em>Can’t come in. Food poisoning. </em>
</p>
<p>He pocketed his phone and left his room, stopping for coffee on the way back to the deck. Duke was in the wheelhouse, and they were pulling away from the slip when he got there.</p>
<p>Unsure of what else to do with himself, Nathan joined Duke, staring out into the water.</p>
<p>The wheelhouse was organized chaos; maps, charts, dials, screens, and buttons covered every surface that wasn’t window, and Nathan was a little intimidated by all of it.</p>
<p>It wasn’t that he wasn’t used to boats; no one could grow up in Haven and not spend time on the water, and his father had a fishing boat, but he was suddenly aware that he’d never spent any time on a ship as big as the Rouge, and certainly not anything as industrial.</p>
<p>He watched Duke out of the corner of his eye, following his smooth, sure motions as he steered the boat out of the harbor and into the open sea, looking back to see the few lights that made up Haven vanish into darkness.</p>
<p>Despite the vast dark emptiness ahead of them, Duke seemed to know where he was going, and Nathan was stunned to realize he’d taught all this to himself. When they were kids, Duke had babbled endlessly about star charts and navigation and how to get to various places, and after a couple years of it, Nathan had often tuned him out. Suddenly, he realized that for Duke, it had never been theory. He had spent his entire childhood teaching himself how to do <em>this. </em></p>
<p>And he was good at it. He whistled through his teeth as he steered, staring out to the water, glancing up at the stars and checking charts on the table, the satellite navigation system ignored on the dash.</p>
<p>He looked so sure that any thought Nathan might have had about asking if Duke knew how to get where they were going died before it made its way to his lips. Anyone who looked at him would have known that he did.</p>
<p>“I don’t like the look of that,” Duke said casually, gesturing out towards the sky to the left of them, which Nathan hadn’t noticed didn’t have any stars.</p>
<p><em>Cloudy, </em>He realized, then decided when he got back he would take time to learn more about sailing, and weather, and any number of things Duke had explained when they were kids when he wasn’t paying enough attention.</p>
<p>“Some of the cargo is on the deck, can you move it to the hold? I’ll come help once we’re further out.”</p>
<p>Nathan nodded and left, surprising himself with a little regret. He had enjoyed watching Duke in his element like that.</p>
<p>There were dozens of boxes scattered around the deck, and Nathan couldn’t have guessed which ones were their cargo and which were left over from another job, and which were purely decorative, which some of them had to be. Luckily, Duke had marked a few of them with the next day’s date, and Nathan set about moving those into the hold.</p>
<p>He was halfway down the ladder, one-handed, box balanced precariously on his hip when Duke joined him.</p>
<p>“Careful—”</p>
<p>Nathan startled, slid, and missed the last couple rungs of the ladder, landing hard on his feet and nearly dropping the box.</p>
<p>Duke climbed down after him. “Careful, Nate, you’ll break your arm.”</p>
<p>Nathan almost smiled. “Not likely.”</p>
<p>“What, because you’re so graceful?”</p>
<p>Nathan shrugged. “Bones grow back stronger after you break them.”</p>
<p>The smile that spread over Duke’s face was slow and genuine; he remembered. “Then your left arm must be made of steel.” He shuddered a little bit.</p>
<p>Nathan forced the memory back down, the strange detachment of seeing his bone sticking through his coat, the way everyone had panicked, and he had done nothing at all, just gone on looking until Duke put his arm around him and started leading the way to the hospital. He didn’t think about that.</p>
<p>He only thought of that day as fun, refused to see the rest of the memory if he could avoid it. It was easier. Better.</p>
<p>Duke carried the last of the boxes and Nathan stayed on deck, staring into the expanse of velvet darkness scattered with stars and the light they reflected on the water.</p>
<p>It was quiet and beautiful.</p>
<p>Duke joined him at the bow, staring into the black horizon in silence. He looked sideways at Nathan, the faint traces of the smile still on his face. “It’s not bad, is it?” <br/>Looking up, Nathan studied the smile, studied the way the starlight and the dim, orangey glow from the deck lamp illuminated Duke’s face. He didn’t say anything, letting the night speak for itself.</p>
<hr/>
<p>Duke woke up early, which wasn’t unusual at all; even with his reliable autopilot he couldn’t sleep well unless he was further out to sea than it was practical to go for this trip.</p>
<p>Nathan, apparently, didn’t have this problem, because there were no signs of life from behind his closed door when Duke shuffled past the galley with his French press and a book he’d been meaning to finish for six months.</p>
<p>Once at the wheelhouse, he checked everything and found that, unsurprisingly, nothing was awry, and they were still on course. He made his way back to the deck and settled into his chair with his book and his coffee.</p>
<p>It was a cool morning, and the pleasant kind of breezy that Duke never experienced anywhere aside from a few dozen miles from shore. The sun beginning to peer hesitantly over thin, pinkish wisps of clouds, and Duke was at peace.</p>
<p>Despite his best attempts, the book remained ignored. Instead he stared out at the silvery water and thought. The previous night hadn’t been a disaster. In fact, Nathan was shockingly easy to have on board.</p>
<p>He was quiet and very still most of the time. Duke remembered the days when Nathan had been getting used to his height, which had come out of nowhere and surprised them all. He had been all arms and legs back then, clumsy to the point of ridiculousness and a danger to anyone who stood too close.</p>
<p>He must have taught himself, after that, not to move too much or too quickly, compensating for his new length not by learning how to move, but by staying very, very still.</p>
<p>Duke didn’t miss having more people on board. A larger crew sometimes made things easier, but there was an advantage to having just one, quiet person to help with the work. Evi’s crew—it had never really been <em>their </em>crew—had been loud, confident types.</p>
<p>Nathan was good at seeing that something needed done and doing it without comment, and without waiting for instruction or praise. It was a good change, something Duke hadn’t even realized he valued so highly because he’d never had it before.</p>
<p>There were, he didn’t entirely want to admit, a number of advantages of having Nathan around. And Duke was more than a little concerned that they were advantages that were specific to Nathan, and not just the general benefits of not working alone. That was too complicated and tangled a thought to pick through, so Duke ignored it, sipping his coffee and breathing in the morning.</p>
<p>An hour later, the clouds had burned away, and the sun was truly risen and competing vainly with the breeze for whether or not the weather would be comfortable, and Nathan finally made it to the deck.</p>
<p>Duke had to hide his smile in his coffee mug at the sight of Nate’s sheet-wrinkled face and mussed hair. He looked young, boyish.</p>
<p>Cute, Duke realized. Nathan looked cute, and Duke was entirely sure that if he made a comment about it, Nathan would punch him and the easy peace of last night would be gone for good.</p>
<p>He saved the thought, and the affectionate smile, and gave Nathan a sarcastic wave instead. “Morning sleeping beauty.”</p>
<p>“Mrrghph.”</p>
<p>“You’re a philosopher.” Duke held out the coffee pot and then pulled it back to pour Nathan his own mug. With the way he was looking, Duke was not confident Nathan wouldn’t have poured it directly down his throat.</p>
<p>For the next couple minutes, Nathan drank his coffee with the silent reverie of a man in prayer. Duke watched him out of the corner of his eye while he sipped his own coffee and pretended to read.</p>
<p>“Are we close?” Nathan asked, setting his now empty mug aside.</p>
<p>“Getting there,” Duke replied vaguely. He stared at the mug, wondering if Nathan had burned himself, and why he cared. “Couple hours.”</p>
<p>Nathan let out an inarticulate grunt and dropped his head to his chest like he might go back to sleep right there.</p>
<p>“Not a morning person?” Duke asked, pretending he didn’t remember that about him.</p>
<p>Nathan shook his head without lifting it. “Tired.”</p>
<p>“You know what they say, Nate,” He said, slapping him on the back just slightly harder than he needed to. “The early criminal gets away with it.”</p>
<p>Nathan grunted again and, without asking, took the rest of the coffee.</p>
<p>Later, Duke decided, when Nathan was fully awake, they were going to have a conversation about boundaries. And manners.</p>
<p>In the meantime, he nudged Nathan with his elbow playfully, exactly how he would have when they were kids. “What’s the matter, Nate, you don’t like the word criminal?”</p>
<p>“Shut up, Duke.”</p>
<p>He pushed further, enjoying Nathan’s irritation. “You’re a criminal now. We’re criminals. We do crimes and we lie to authority figures.”</p>
<p>“Cute, Duke.”</p>
<p>Duke beamed, completely unphased. “Yes, I am.”</p>
<p>Nathan flushed, and Duke almost punched the air. There was something deeply satisfying about getting under Nathan’s skin, and something even better about knowing he still could.</p>
<p><em>What was that about not mixing business and pleasure? </em>The Evi-voice asked snidely.</p>
<p>Duke ignored it. It was just one job anyway. It was fine to have a little fun with Nathan on one job. Just like old times.</p>
<p>They’d drop the cargo, get paid, maybe grab a celebratory drink, and then it would be over. They would part ways as unlikely friends, people who occasionally ran into each other at Mac’s and sat together to have a drink. Duke could live with that. He could survive a weird, acquaintance-y distance as long as it wasn’t the vast, yawning guilt he’d felt about leaving.</p>
<p>Distance was safer, now that they weren’t thousands of miles away from each other, but they could still be friends.</p>
<p>Nathan stood up and the ship rocked abruptly, and he stumbled, sloshing coffee down his shirt. His jaw flexed, the only sign of his irritation.</p>
<p>Duke bit down on his laugh, trying very hard not to let on how hard he was trying not to smile. It came out as a strange, snorted cough which clearly didn’t fool Nathan.</p>
<p>He glowered and muttered something about changing while he shuffled off the deck.</p>
<p><em>Friends, </em>Duke thought firmly. <em>That’ll work. </em>But as he watched Nathan go belowdecks there was a slightly more than friendly warmth in his chest.</p>
<p>He went to the wheelhouse to pilot them the rest of the way in himself. The islands in this area could be messy navigating and he didn’t trust his autopilot for that. He picked a rough jut of land that, but for the handful of scraggly, struggling trees, would have only counted as a pile of rocks. He was dropping the anchor when Nathan reemerged.</p>
<p>“Here?” Nathan asked, looking at the rough approximation of a landmass skeptically.</p>
<p>“We’ll leave the cargo here,” Duke explained, “And then meet the buyer in town. He gets the coordinates, we get the money, everyone leaves peacefully.”</p>
<p>If Nathan was concerned about the fact that Duke had set this up with the expectation that they might get murdered and robbed, he didn’t show it. Duke wasn’t sure if that was morning-induced apathy or because he really didn’t care.  </p>
<p>“Before that, though,” Duke said. “We have to unload all this.”</p>
<p>“It’s not going to fit in the dinghy,” Nathan observed.</p>
<p>Duke fought the urge to explain to Nathan that that was probably why they’d paid someone with a cargo ship to move it. “We’ll have to take a few trips.”</p>
<p>It ended up being thirty-six trips. By the seventh, they’d gotten it down to a science. Nathan loaded the dinghy, Duke drove it in and unloaded it, and then brought it back to where Nathan was waiting with the next pile of crates, already organized by which would go first so they wouldn’t flip the dinghy.</p>
<p>It was, honestly, one of the easiest drops he’d made in ages, including when he’d been running with Evi’s crew. He hoped one day he might get to tell Evi that her crew had been outdone by a cop on his first job, but imagining her face was almost as good.</p>
<p>About halfway through he’d returned to the boat to find that Nathan wasn’t quite ready for him, and had his phone to his ear.</p>
<p>“No, don’t come over. I’m fine. Just—” He let out an almost sarcastically fake cough— “Sick.”</p>
<p>Duke watched him, studied the rigid line of his jaw, the way his brow somehow got even lower over his eyes.</p>
<p>“I don’t need anything,” Nathan said. “It’s food poisoning.” He nodded, grunted, and hung up the phone.</p>
<p>Duke thought about asking, but, as if anticipating the question, Nathan lifted one of the boxes and started lowering it, stopping the conversation before it could start.</p>
<p>They didn’t talk at all until they were finished unloading and getting ready to head into town.</p>
<p>“So that was all stolen?” Nathan asked, his voice so casual it had to be forced.  </p>
<p>Duke shrugged. “Everything’s stolen from someone.”</p>
<p>Nathan rolled his eyes, and Duke considered defending himself, explaining that—whatever he wanted to believe—Nathan’s wardrobe of ill-fitting button down shirts and canvas jackets had been made with stolen labor, so even the honestly-earned money he’d paid for it didn’t mean it wasn’t, in some way, taken.</p>
<p>Duke had gotten very good at justifying the things he did.</p>
<p>Nathan rolled his eyes. “It just seems heavy.” He shrugged.</p>
<p>Duke looked at him from the corner of his eyes. “Too heavy to be stolen?” <br/>“It’s harder to steal things that are heavy!” Nathan was immediately defensive, but he spoke with the confidence of someone who’d watched at least one heist movie.</p>
<p>And, unfortunately, Duke had to concede that Nathan was right. “The stealing is usually the easiest part,” He said rather than admitting it. “Most jobs go wrong with transport or sale.”</p>
<p>“That’s where you come in?” Nathan asked.</p>
<p>Duke searched his voice for the note of judgement, for the derision, but found nothing. Maybe Nathan was tired, or maybe he was getting over his law and order fetish and finally having some fun.</p>
<p>“Sometimes.” Duke shrugged. “I buy, I sell, I deliver. Honestly, Nate,” He said, pitching his voice low and significant. “There’s not much I haven’t done.”</p>
<p>He wasn’t sure why he was admitting it, but he thought Nathan ought to know, before he formed some false idea that Duke was a noble criminal, living beneath and around unjust laws.</p>
<p>It was a fun fantasy, but nothing more, and Nathan was the sort to get attached to that kind of thing. To expect things from it.</p>
<p>Duke knew better than to think he could meet those expectations.</p>
<p>Nathan only nodded. “You don’t get caught.”</p>
<p>Duke smiled. “You checked.” It wasn’t a question.</p>
<p>Though he didn’t meet Duke’s eyes, the red stain on Nathan’s cheeks gave him away.</p>
<p>“You searched for my record,” Duke laughed. “And?”</p>
<p>“You’ve been arrested but nothing ever stuck,” Nathan said. “You make a habit of annoying cops.”</p>
<p>If Duke hadn’t known Nathan so well for so long, he wouldn’t have been able to see the little smile on his face, that tiny hint of laughter to show that he was teasing.</p>
<p>And if Nathan was going to start it, who was Duke to resist? “Well it’s just so much fun.” He quirked his own smile in Nathan’s direction.</p>
<p>Whatever tension Duke had been expecting, the rigid anger Nathan had displayed when he’d realized what Duke was doing, just hadn’t appeared, and he couldn’t quite figure out why.</p>
<p>But he knew Nathan better than to try to ask.  </p>
<p>They left the boat at a harbor in the nearest town. No one asked them any questions, but Duke felt the eyes of old fishermen on his back as he walked by. He doubted any of them would recognize him from his early days running jobs out of the same town. It had been so many years, and this town—not unlike Haven—looked a little worse for wear.</p>
<p>Weather and saltwater had not been kind to the dive bar at which Duke had planned to meet the buyer, but it was still open, and still full of weathered men drinking too much too early in the day.</p>
<p>Nathan looked at them, something sad in his eyes that Duke couldn’t name.</p>
<p>They walked together to the table in the back, where a familiar face was staring at them. His eyes had already slid past Duke and were fixed on Nathan.</p>
<p>Duke nudged him and leaned in to whisper. “Try not to look like a cop. And don’t say anything.”</p>
<p>He opened his mouth to protest but Duke lifted one hand slightly, a warning, and his mouth snapped closed again.</p>
<p>“What is this Crocker?” Wes said, eyes fixed on Nathan. “Thought you were running alone now.”</p>
<p>Duke cut him off before he could mention Evi. “Training a new partner,” He said. “Old family friend.”</p>
<p>The fact that he’d emphasized “family” made his skin crawl, but it would stop any further questions. He’d had nothing else to offer his son, but Simon’s slimy reputation gave even hardened criminals some pause, and it was an advantage Duke occasionally pressed.</p>
<p>Wes studied Nathan for another long moment, his eyes searching Nathan’s face, his clothes, his body. Duke saw the way his friend tensed and wanted to reach for him, wanted to offer some kind of reassurance that he was safe, that whatever Wes was thinking, it almost certainly wasn’t <em>that</em> but anything he did would only make things worse so he watched as Nathan jutted out his chin, widened his stance and stared back with a challenge in his eyes.</p>
<p>After a moment that lasted hours, Wes sat back. “He looks like a cop.”</p>
<p>“People can’t help what they look like, Wes,” Duke said blithely, hiding his sigh of relief in a smile and a laugh.</p>
<p>“How was the trip?” Wes asked as they settled into their seats, Wes on the booth against the wall and Nathan and Duke in chairs facing him.</p>
<p>“Skip the small talk. Where’s the money?”</p>
<p>“I have it,” Wes said. “Where’s the cargo?”</p>
<p>“Money first; you know how this works.”</p>
<p>“And here I’d have thought you’d be one to break from tradition.” Wes’s eyes slid between Duke and Nathan, an insinuation that brought on some complicated and not exclusively unwanted feelings in him.</p>
<p>He didn’t like Wes, even though he didn’t know him well. He knew he’d been a lackey for Stoney for a while, but this job didn’t tie back to Stoney in any way Duke had found, which made him wonder if Wes was double-dipping, and what the consequences might be if someone were to find out.</p>
<p>But that wasn’t how Duke liked to play.</p>
<p>“Give us the money and I’ll give you this.” He held up the paper where he’d written the coordinates of the island he’d left the goods on.</p>
<p>“Money’s out back behind the blue Toyota,” Wes said after a moment.</p>
<p>“Nate, go check,” Duke said.</p>
<p>Nathan stood up and walked away.</p>
<p>“Where’s the trust, Wes?” Duke asked.</p>
<p>“Word is you screwed over your old crew,” Wes said. “Can’t be too careful, if that’s how you’d treat your—”</p>
<p>Duke laughed, biting it off when he realized it hurt. That was what she was telling people? His throat burned. “Word’s wrong,” Duke said simply.</p>
<p>“So why the new guy?”</p>
<p>“He was in a tight spot, needed some help.” He didn’t want to talk about Nathan, even lying about Nathan felt wrong. He didn’t want Wes or any of the people he swapped rumors with knowing anything about Nathan. He knew better than to say anything that even remotely implied that, though.</p>
<p>Before Wes had a chance to comment, Nathan stepped inside, lifting a worn duffle bag just high enough for Duke to see it. He set the paper on the table in front of Wes. “Here’s the cargo.” He stood and turned to go.</p>
<p>“Evidence says hi, Duke.”</p>
<p>Duke left without looking back at Wes, grabbing Nathan by the arm and pulling him out of the bar.</p>
<p>When they got back to the Rouge, Duke had to focus on his muscles, starting with his jaw and working his way down, relaxing every tension he found. He’d started to believe he was over Evi, started to believe his own hype about the benefits of a fresh start, but hearing her name, being reminded what he’d had, what he’d lost had stung more than he’d thought it would.</p>
<p>He had finished just in time for Nathan to open the bag and immediately drop it on the deck. “Holy shit.”</p>
<p>Duke sighed, considered asking why Nathan hadn’t opened the bag earlier, but then let himself smile and enjoy Nathan’s enthusiasm.</p>
<p>“Holy shit,” He repeated, “This…”</p>
<p>“Is mostly mine,” Duke said, plucking the bag out of Nathan’s hands. “Ninety-ten is standard for a first run, so I’m being generous when I offer you seventy-thirty.”</p>
<p>“Fifty-fifty,” Nathan argued.</p>
<p>“Seventy-thirty,” Duke repeated.</p>
<p>“Sixty five-forty five?”</p>
<p>Duke wanted to laugh. “Try to sound like you know what you’re doing, Nate. Seventy five-twenty five.”</p>
<p>Nathan looked ready to agree, before he paused, frowned and then glared at Duke. “Fifty-fifty.”</p>
<p>“That’s not how this works.”</p>
<p>Nathan pulled his badge out of his pocket and set it between them. “Without me, you’d never have gotten this far. Fifty-fifty.”</p>
<p>“Please for the love of god tell me that you didn’t have that fucking thing in your pocket that whole time. No wonder he thought you looked like a cop. You know what, just for that, eighty-twenty.”</p>
<p>“Fifty-fifty.”</p>
<p>“Or what, you call your dad?”</p>
<p>Nathan bristled. “I don’t need him to arrest you—”</p>
<p>“Really Nate?” He hated how quickly they’d devolved, hated that the tension and anger was back, and that it was probably mostly his fault, but Nathan was threatening to arrest him. After everything it seemed ridiculous.</p>
<p>Nathan must have realized it too, because his posture deflated. “Fine, seventy-thirty.”</p>
<p>Duke nodded, but when he counted out the money, he split it sixty-forty, and neither of them said a word about it.</p>
<p>Without talking any more, they started to get the Rouge ready to sail, and Duke was surprised to find that Nathan already seemed to know the steps.</p>
<hr/>
<p>Apparently, there was some kind of magical force that only existed aboard Duke’s boat when they were out to sea, because they weren’t fighting.</p>
<p>Part of that might have been the dinner Duke had cooked, which included the swordfish Nathan had caught on their ill-fated fishing trip. He wondered if maybe that was some kind of peace offering.</p>
<p>If so, it worked. Nathan hadn’t had a home cooked meal made by anyone other than himself—and he’d be the first to admit that his idea of cooking usually involved the microwave—in years. Duke had, whether he’d been trying to or not, found Nathan’s weakness.</p>
<p>And Nathan didn’t think he’d mind if Duke wanted to exploit it a little bit.</p>
<p>It bothered him more than he wanted to admit that Duke could get under his skin so effectively. That it took so little to have him coiling his hands into fists, ready to defend himself against the barest slight. He wasn’t even sure—and even less sure he cared—whether or not it was intentional.</p>
<p>Regardless, there was a part of him that couldn’t let go of the thought that Duke should know better. Things he’d allow from other people, things that would only make him sigh in resignation and ache quietly when he was on his own, were unacceptable from Duke.</p>
<p>“Another beer?” Duke asked, splitting the silence.</p>
<p>“Yeah, thanks.”</p>
<p>Nathan watched him walk away, stared at the ease and comfort with which he moved across the deck and swallowed the instinctive envy at that comfort. What, he wondered, was that like? To walk around totally at ease with your body and the way other people saw it?</p>
<p>“You alright?” Duke asked, returning and handing Nathan a beer. He popped the top off with his keys and then took Duke’s to do the same.</p>
<p>“Yeah,” He said, hiding a small sigh with a sip of beer.</p>
<p>“You did good today, Nate,” Duke said.</p>
<p>Nathan couldn’t fight the small smile that reached his face. “I didn’t say anything.”</p>
<p>“Take it from someone who learned the hard way; sometimes that’s the best thing to do.”</p>
<p>Nathan laughed. “What, you? Running your mouth? No way.”</p>
<p>Duke bumped his shoulder, sloshing his beer and nearly spilling it. “Shut up. Least I can lie worth a damn.”</p>
<p>“Been ten years, Duke, maybe I learned how to lie.” He looked at him, the smallest challenge in his eyes. He wasn’t sure what he wanted, what he hoped Duke would do, just that this was fun.</p>
<p>“I’ll believe it when I see it,” Duke said, but his eyes were warm in the dim light.</p>
<p>They fell silent, smiles fading even when the tentative trust didn’t.</p>
<p>“So,” Nathan said, finally finding the courage to voice the question that had been hovering around his mind all day. “What happens Monday?”</p>
<p>“I don’t know, Bender,” Duke laughed.</p>
<p>Nathan flinched. Of course Duke made it a joke; Nathan should have expected that. “Never mind.”</p>
<p>“I don’t know, Nate,” Duke said, throwing up his hands, the pretense of laughter gone. “What was this?”</p>
<p>“I… I don’t know.”</p>
<p>“Did you have fun on your crime field trip?” Duke asked.</p>
<p>Nathan shrugged. “Never mind.”</p>
<p>“No, don’t do that,” Duke snapped. “Do you want to do this again?”</p>
<p>Nathan looked up, startled. “What?”</p>
<p>“We worked well together. You’re less of a shithead than most of the guys I could get for this job, and I wouldn’t mind having you around, but this isn’t a half-in gig. Sometimes it’s dangerous. Just because this job went smooth doesn’t mean the next one will.”</p>
<p>Nathan’s heartrate picked up. He wondered how often jobs went bad, how many times someone had tried to kill Duke.</p>
<p>Despite the fact that a week ago he was mad enough that he might not have cared if Duke never returned to Haven, the idea of him getting hurt—or dying—on a job made him feel queasy.</p>
<p>“I’m in,” He said.</p>
<p>“Nathan—”</p>
<p>“Duke,” Nathan said, meeting his eyes, voice low.</p>
<p>Duke dropped his head, letting out a half-laugh breath, a slight, unhappy smile on his face. “Alright. I’ll let you know when the next one is.”</p>
<p>Nathan smiled, warmth and something like triumph—a feeling he’d all but forgotten after years of working with his father—spreading in his chest. “We’re splitting the next one fifty-fifty.”</p>
<p>Duke opened his mouth, raising his hand to point at Nathan, then shook his head and laughed. “Fuck you, Nate.”</p>
<p>There was no heat behind the words, and Nathan almost thought there might be affection there.</p>
<p>“You have a lot to learn, you know,” Duke said.</p>
<p>“Like?”</p>
<p>“Well a seasoned criminal probably would have made sure the money was in the bag before he signaled me.”</p>
<p>Nathan rolled his eyes, but couldn’t quite hide his smile. “I’ll remember that for next time.”</p>
<p>“And don’t take calls from cops in the middle of a job,” Duke raised his eyebrows a little; apparently it was his turn to issue a challenge.</p>
<p>He didn’t respond, not exactly backing down, but not quite rising to it either.</p>
<p>Duke let him get away with it. “You could be good at this.”</p>
<p>“Maybe I missed my calling.”</p>
<p>“I guess I called back,” Duke said with an easy laugh.</p>
<p>Nathan smiled back and turned to look out at the darkening sky in front of them. He knew he’d been right, that spending time with Duke would be a very slippery slope.</p>
<p>But then… he really had liked sledding.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. The World in Black and White</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>At the last minute I decided to cut a monster chapter into two smaller chapters, so I promise you won't have to wait three months for an update again! Thanks as always to the incredible Ashe Gendernoncompliant, without whose help this chapter never would have been posted.<br/>Comments are extremely appreciated</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Nathan didn’t want to say that things are going well. Saying it would have involved admitting that anything had changed, and he hadn’t quite gotten around to doing that yet.</p><p>He’d done another run with Duke, following roughly the same pattern as the first one, and once again they’d split the profits.</p><p>He’d gotten someone in to check the roof and foundation of his house, both of which needed work that he wouldn’t have been able to pay for if it weren’t for his new influx of cash. He would even had enough left over to pay for some repairs he’d been putting off on his truck.</p><p>He didn’t ask Duke how he’d spent his half of the cash, when he saw him. But he did see him.</p><p>Somehow, Duke had become a regular part of his week. They “ran into” each other at Mac’s—Nathan claimed he was going in for carryout but if Duke happened to be sitting at the bar he’d decide to dine in—or at the docks.</p><p>It was during those meetings that they’d set up the other two runs they’d done, which had been smaller and quicker, but only marginally less lucrative. It had been over a week since their last accidental run-in, and Nathan had started spending time at his real job wondering when he would be able to his illegal job again. </p><p>When his lunch break finally rolled around, he stood up and started walking. He didn’t have a plan for where he was going, just a vague idea that he needed to move around before settling in for another mind-numbing afternoon, but he angled himself towards where the farmer’s market was in full swing. He told himself it was because there was usually a food truck or two parked there, and he could get his walk and his lunch in one fell swoop.</p><p>He also told himself that it had nothing to do with the fact that Duke went there often, and that Nathan wanted to run into him.</p><p>As he approached Dockside Green, he looked for Duke, trying to ignore the anticipatory flutter in his stomach. He doubted—boldly allowing himself to even think about it—that most criminals had to do that when faced with meeting their partner.</p><p>Duke was easy to spot over the crowd, he was tall, the gestures he made when talking to Angus were boisterous, and his voice rose above the crowd as if Nathan were tuned into it specifically. He was telling some story that Nathan put at about twenty percent true, and he hadn’t seen Nathan coming, which meant he could just watch him for a while.</p><p>He didn’t dare though. Staring at Duke was too high school. It was a dusty habit he’d stored on a shelf for a while that didn’t need to be brought back down. And besides, there were people around. It was risky to be seen staring at Duke, risky to be seen around him too often; part of the reason their partnership worked was because no one would suspect it was possible.</p><p>If asked, Nathan was sure most people in town would have said that he and Duke hadn’t liked one another.</p><p>There were more reasons to believe that now. Rumors had been spreading that Duke Crocker was back to his old ways, or following his father’s footsteps, though Nathan knew Duke would hate that phrasing. For now, the police weren’t looking into it; they were just rumors. Quietly Nathan worried that it wouldn’t be long before they did. The Scupper had dropped prices on some of its imported liquor, the bartender muttering about a cheaper supplier when asked. Nathan had also heard about some of the wealthier summer people boasting about new, rare acquisitions.</p><p>He hadn’t asked Duke if he was responsible, but then, he hadn’t really needed to. He’d been on the run that had brought back a case of wine older than the constitution and a painting Duke had described as “a forgery so good it would convince Picasso’s mother”.</p><p>Nathan hadn’t really known what that meant—the painting had veered more towards neo-surrealism than cubism—but he’d taken him at his word.</p><p>The other run had been more mysterious. He wasn’t sure what they’d delivered or to whom, and the look on Duke’s face told him that this was one of the occasions where it wouldn’t help to ask.</p><p>So he hadn’t asked, and he’d liked not having to.</p><p>It was the opposite of everything he’d ever been taught to do. All of the chief’s rules and training and tirades about paying attention and following leads, and now that he was in the center of real crime, Nathan treated it like the sun.</p><p>He’d been standing on the outskirts of the market gawking for just long enough that people were starting to notice him, so he waded into it towards Duke.</p><p>He realized as he was walking that he hadn’t gotten anything for lunch and turned to the nearest cart to purchase a couple apples.</p><p>“Nate?”</p><p>He nearly dropped the apples, and fumbled the change the farmer was giving him. “Duke! Hi.”</p><p>Duke waited for him to say more with a neutrally expectant expression. “What are you doing here?” He prompted when Nathan didn’t.</p><p>“I was, uh—” He looked around as if seeing the stalls and vendors would inspire some excuse “—Lunch.”</p><p>“Right. Are you free tonight?”</p><p>Nathan looked around them furtively, searching for staring eyes or people who seemed just a bit too interested in them.</p><p>Duke grabbed him by the shoulders, turning him so that Nathan had to look him in the eye. “Nate?”</p><p>“Uh, yeah, I’m… free. Day off tomorrow.”</p><p>Duke smiled and Nathan’s thoughts, already tangled, scattered again. “Good. We leave tonight. Meet me at the Rouge.” He turned to go.</p><p>“Wait,” Nathan said, grabbing his sleeve at the last moment. “How do you know I want to go?”</p><p>Duke laughed. “I’m supposed to believe you’re here for the apples? C’mon Nate; you’re a decent smuggler but you’d make a terrible conman.”</p><p>Nathan flushed, hating how easy it was for Duke to get under his skin. He also had to spare a nervous glance at all the people around. What if someone overheard?</p><p>“Relax.” Duke rolled his eyes. “No one is paying attention to us, but they might start if you keep looking around like you’re about to rob a bank.”</p><p>“Sorry,” Nathan said, dropping his eyes to stare at the crushed grass under his feet.</p><p>Duke muttered something that sounded suspiciously like “why you?” but Nathan wasn’t sure he’d heard him right. “I’ll see you tonight, Nate.”</p><p>He walked away, tossing casual hellos to a few people in the crowd while he crossed to the other side of the green where his truck was parked. Illegally.</p><p>Heaving a sigh, Nathan wondered why, exactly, he’d thought this was a good idea.</p><p>He walked back to the station and ate his apples in slow, mechanic succession, wondering how much longer the day would go on.</p><p>The afternoon monotony was abruptly broken up by the chief stepping into the bullpen and shouting for everyone’s attention.</p><p>Nathan emerged from his office like he was expecting to be attacked, and barely strayed away from the doorframe while everyone else gathered around. Rafferty and Stan appeared in unison on either side of this.</p><p>“What’s this about?” Stan asked; he seemed to be under the impression that Nathan had some special insight to the chief. Nathan thought that Stan probably knew more about what the chief was thinking than he did most days.</p><p>“I didn’t get an APB,” Rafferty said.</p><p>“There wasn’t one.” Nathan was sure he would have noticed that.</p><p>“Everybody listen up,” The chief called, staring everyone down until the conversations hushed and went silent. “There have been some rumors going around about a new smuggling operation out of Haven harbor. Obviously the last thing we want is the fed crawling around here and getting in our business—”</p><p>Nathan rolled his eyes. He’d never understood his father’s intense dislike of the FBI, which he voiced as often as possible to anyone who would listen.</p><p>“—So we have to nip this in the bud. Keep your eyes and ears open, I have reason to suspect something is going on tonight.”</p><p>Abruptly, the room felt very warm. Nathan looked around, searching for the source of all the heat, barely resisting the urge to tug on his collar. The chief, thankfully, wasn’t looking at him.</p><p>A smuggling operation. The heat changed, shifting to something just a little like pride at the thought that he and Duke constituted an <em>operation</em>. The three runs he’d been on felt more like vacations than any kind of work.</p><p>Quickly remembering that he had to act natural, Nathan refocused on what the chief was saying.</p><p>“I’ll need an extra pair of people on the docks tonight; you’ll be paid overtime while we work out new shifts. Volunteers?”</p><p>The chief’s eyes went right to Nathan, and he met them and stared back, but didn’t raise his hand.</p><p>He was going to be at the docks tonight, but he wasn’t planning on being a cop while he was there.</p><p>Then it dawned on him; how the hell could the chief know about his meeting tonight? He’d only known about it for a couple hours. It set his heart beating a little faster, and once again the room felt far too warm, almost humid. He swallowed thickly, thinking hard.</p><p>He shouldn’t go tonight.</p><p>Meeting Duke was a mistake.</p><p>But Duke didn’t know. Duke would leave without him—that was what Duke did—but this time it would land him in trouble.</p><p>The smartest choice was to stay home, but Nathan was already planning how to get there.</p>
<hr/><p>Duke wouldn’t have said that his day was going badly, but he wasn’t thrilled about how it was happening.</p><p>Running into Nathan had unsettled him, had left him feeling even more restless and landlocked than he usually did after more than a couple weeks in one port. He’d told himself he planned on staying in Haven. He’d told himself it would be good, but already he was missing long trips on open water.</p><p>And he was acting like a teenager again, a sad, lost little idiot who wanted to bring Nathan along.</p><p>He’d been vaguely mapping routes to Chile or Greenland in his head when he’d caught sight of Nathan, looking at the farmer’s market like he’d forgotten why he was there.</p><p>The route for their trip tonight had already been mapped, his course planned out and fed to his autopilot, not that he actually planned on using it. He’d gotten familiar with those waters, and he was wondering if it might be better to keep a little… professional distance between himself and Nathan.</p><p>Evi’s voice laughed at him from the back of his mind, but he studiously ignored it. This wasn’t <em>that</em>. It was just Nathan.</p><p>But maybe that was why Duke wanted to spend some time hiding in the wheelhouse while Nathan stayed on deck, which he nearly always did on their trips.</p><p>It wasn’t that so much had changed between him and Nathan during their runs—Nathan was suspicious of him and visibly cautious when they were together—but sometimes their younger selves were ghosts on the ship.</p><p>He swore sometimes he could hear himself laughing and calling out for Nathan to follow him, could hear Nathan, mid-argument, hurrying to catch up.</p><p>“We’re not sixteen anymore,” He reminded himself.</p><p>The words rang hollow in the empty wheelhouse.</p><p>Without much else to do, he poured himself a drink and settled in to wait for Nathan to show.</p><p>It got dark.</p><p>Hours ticked past.</p><p>Duke made dinner.</p><p>He didn’t pace. He waited, still and sure, until his impatience got the better of him and he went up to have a look.</p><p>The first thing he noticed was the conspicuous plainclothes policeman on one of the other docks. He was wearing a long raincoat despite the clear night, and his shoulders were tense and too alert, even at a distance.</p><p>All Duke’s senses picked up. He looked around, spotting another cop a few berths down. He remembered the weird, cagey way Nathan had acted when he’d seen him earlier.</p><p>
  <em>What did you do, Nate? </em>
</p><p>A beat later, quieter but sharper, <em>Why did you do it? </em></p><p>He watched the cops pace, glancing at each other unsubtly while they waited. For what, Duke wasn’t sure.</p><p>His eyes flicked to the table. He had a shotgun hidden there; if he had to shoot his way out, he could.</p><p>But last week Nathan had mentioned that some cop named Tater was expecting his first kid and had started picking up extra shifts to cover the cost. Maybe he was making excuses, but it turned his stomach to think about killing someone like that.</p><p>It turned his stomach to think about killing someone.</p><p>He’d had to pull his fair share of triggers on his various runs with Evi and her crew, but that didn’t mean he liked it. It didn’t mean that part of the appeal of coming back to Haven was that he wouldn’t have to do that again, and frankly, he wasn’t sure it would be worth it. This was supposed to be a pickup; he had less than the usual amount of contraband on the ship.</p><p>So why, he wondered again, had Nathan sold him out? Had he thought he would have to and so he chose a time when he knew Duke would have less to explain? Was Duke giving him more credit than he deserved just considering that?</p><p>“Duke?”</p><p>Duke let out a dignified squeak of surprise and rounded on Nathan, once again thinking about the hidden shotgun.</p><p>Nathan waved, standing awkwardly on deck as if he wasn’t sure why he was there.</p><p>Duke wasn’t sure why he was there either. “We’ve got company,” He said, pointing at the cops.</p><p>Nathan nodded. “I’m going to talk to them, then we can leave.”</p><p>“Talk—are you insane?”</p><p>“Trust me.”</p><p>And, weirdly enough, Duke did.</p><p>He watched as Nathan approached one of the cops, looking suspiciously casual with his hands in his pockets. Duke couldn’t hear what was being said, but after a minute the cop laughed and slapped Nathan’s back as he walked away.</p><p>“What did you—”</p><p>Smug was an irritatingly good look on Nathan. “They’re waiting on a delivery; we’re good to leave.”</p><p>That was a surprise. Duke thought he was the only player in the area, and he wondered who had bad information, him or the cops. “They aren’t…”</p><p>“Looking for us?” Nathan shook his head, then half-smiled. “Not yet.”</p><p>For the barest hint of a second, Duke let himself get caught on the word ‘us’, let himself wonder if Nathan was flirting with him, but then he forced himself back to reality.</p><p>“It’s still going to look suspicious as shit if we leave right now,” He said.</p><p>Again, Nathan smiled. “Not if you were contracting for the Northeast Marine Corporation and got so drunk you slept all day.”</p><p>Duke frowned, not quite following.</p><p>“No one wants a cargo ship full of day-old fish sitting around the harbor any longer than it needs to.”</p><p>“Oh my god.” Duke laughed and threw his arms up, stopping just before he actually hugged Nathan. “You’re a genius.”</p><p>“Say that again, I want to record it,” Nathan replied, still not exactly smiling, which probably meant he was joking.</p><p>Duke slapped him on the back and started the process of unmooring the Rouge. Nathan joined him, helping wordlessly and without instruction. Duke wasn’t sure when he’d gotten so used to the boat that he could help with chores, but he wasn’t about to complain.</p><p>The cop at the end of the dock waved at him as he pulled away from the harbor, and Duke fought the urge to duck his head and hide his face. Instead, he waved back.</p><p>At the cop.</p><p>Part of him wondered what Evi would have thought of it. The other part—he was pleased to notice—didn’t care at all.</p><p>Once they were far enough out, he switched on the autopilot and joined Nathan on the deck.</p><p>“Chief’s looking for a smuggler in town,” He said mildly, not looking at Duke.</p><p>“That so?”</p><p>Nathan shrugged.</p><p>“Did you tell him?” Duke asked.</p><p>Nathan flinched and looked away. “Really?”</p><p>Strangely, Duke felt embarrassed that he’d thought Nathan had sold him out. “Nate—”</p><p>“Duke, I’m in this as deep as you are—”</p><p>He wasn’t. Duke knew he wasn’t. Duke knew that Nathan hadn’t seen the tip of the iceberg of what Duke could do. But somehow knowing that Nathan <em>thought </em>he had felt good.</p><p>“I’m a part of this,” Nathan said again. “I’m not… I’m not just going to run to my dad the first time the water gets hot.”</p><p>It was, for Nathan, quite a speech, and Duke appreciated it against his will.</p><p>Duke had known Nathan for so long, and he knew what that kind of promise meant to him. For all his other faults, Nathan was loyal. If he committed to something—or someone, though Duke didn’t want to think of that—he stayed with it.</p><p>Except once.</p><p>Except when it mattered.</p><p>“I’m going to get some sleep,” Duke said abruptly. “You know where everything is, help yourself.”</p><p>Nathan frowned, but didn’t say anything about Duke’s sudden mood change. “Uh, goodnight.”</p><p>“Right, goodnight.” Duke left and was safely in his cabin before he let himself scan through the old, worn, aching memory of the first time he’d left Haven.</p><p><em>What are you waiting for? Permission? Don’t be such a girl, Nate. </em>It had been a low blow. He’d known it then, just as well as he knew it now, and he’d said it anyway.</p><p>Maybe he shouldn’t have been surprised that it hadn’t worked, not for long anyway. As quickly as Nathan had stood up to prove Duke wrong—Nathan always had something to prove—reality had taken over and he’d sat back down and stayed there.</p><p>And stayed in Haven.</p><p>It wasn’t the last time he’d seen Nathan. They’d tried, when they happened to be in Haven at the same time, to pretend everything was fine, to pretend that what had happened—or not happened—that night wasn’t important, but it hadn’t gone away.</p><p><em>Why does it matter? </em>He thought to himself. <em>It’s ancient history. It’s over. </em></p><p>But given that Nathan was sitting on the deck of his boat as he was having the thought, Duke knew that it wasn’t. That maybe it never had been, because they’d left that fight unresolved, the rusty nail of their relationship snagging his feelings whenever he brushed past it.</p><p>He found the scotch bottle he kept in his room; shitty cheap stuff picked for this location so he’d be less inclined to drink in bed. It usually worked.</p><p>He drank until his head was foggy and he was drifting off, thinking idly about the fact that Nathan was just on the other side of the wall, that this was what he’d pictured that night, when he’d thought they could just leave.</p><p>“We could have done it,” He muttered, not entirely certain why he bothered saying it at all.</p>
<hr/><p>Nathan stayed on the deck most of the night. He was restless, anxious. However he’d played it for Duke, he’d been tense when he’d had to talk to McBryan. Lying didn’t come easily to him and he knew he had to be careful not to seem suspicious.</p><p>Thankfully, McBryan was a rookie and not especially observant—something that annoyed the chief to no end—so he’d accepted what Nathan said without reservation.</p><p>When the sky started to turn gray and cold, he moved inside and caught a couple hours’ sleep on the cot in the spare room. There was a neatly folded blanket on the bed that he was sure hadn’t been there last time. He didn’t think too hard about why Duke might have put it there.</p><p>He awoke later with a jolt because Duke was pounding on the door. “We’re here! Get up.”</p><p>He opened the door, knowing he probably looked ridiculous. He’d slept in his clothes and there was no mirror in the room, so god only knew what his hair was doing.</p><p>Duke stared for a moment, and for some reason Nathan flushed and looked away.</p><p>“I uh, brought this for you,” Duke said, shoving a mug of coffee at him.</p><p>“Thanks,” Nathan muttered, taking it.</p><p>They were moored on one of the outlying islands. In the distance, Nathan could see fishing boats going out.</p><p>“There’s supposed to be cargo here,” Duke said, staring at the rocky beach.</p><p>“Maybe it’s small?”</p><p>Duke gave him a rather condescending sidelong glance.</p><p>“You’re too late, Crocker.”</p><p>A man stepped out of the shadows from the trees. He had the kind of face Nathan couldn’t pin an age to. He might have been the oldest looking thirty-year-old Nathan had ever seen, or he might have been a well-preserved fifty something. There was no way of knowing.</p><p>“We had a deal,” Duke said.</p><p>The man shrugged. “Got a better one.”</p><p>Duke’s eyes narrowed. “Come again?”</p><p>“You’re not the only player in these waters, Crocker,” The man said, his lips pressed into something that had the shape of a smile, but none of the feeling. “You got outbid.”</p><p>Nathan could see the tick in Duke’s jaw, the only hint at how angry he was.</p><p>“By who?” Duke asked.</p><p>The man laughed. “Now why would I tell you that? So much better for me if you’re trying to lowball each other.”</p><p>Duke muttered something under his breath that Nathan didn’t catch. After a second, he looked back at the man. “It hasn’t been a pleasure, Woods. Have a day.”</p><p>“Not even going to offer me a lift to the mainland?” Woods called back.</p><p>Duke laughed. “No, I am not.” He waved to Nathan and they returned to the Rouge.</p><p>Nathan didn’t realize how mad Duke was until they were both in the wheelhouse and the ship was leaving the island in her wake.</p><p>“Fuck,” Duke muttered softly. “God damn it.”</p><p>“Duke?” Nathan asked hesitantly.</p><p>“I thought it was me,” He said. “The guy in Haven, the one you’re after; I thought it was me.”</p><p><em>You are the guy I’m after, </em>Nathan thought, and then immediately wanted to slap himself. “Me too,” He said, “Figured someone gave bad information.”</p><p>“But it’s not,” Nathan said, realizing only after the words were out that they were a bit stupid.</p><p>“No, Nathan, it isn’t. It’s correct information about some other guy who’s stealing my territory!” By the end of the sentence, Duke’s voice had gotten to the point where it was almost a shout. He took a long breath, dragging his hand through his hair. “I didn’t think there’d be competition here.” He explained.</p><p>“Doesn’t have to be,” Nathan said, an idea forming.</p><p>“What do you mean?”</p><p>“What if the guy got arrested?”</p><p>“Wha—Nathan… are you…”</p><p>Nathan shrugged. “We’ve used my badge to help us out before, why not do it again?”</p><p>“Because if someone thinks I’m a snitch I’ll end up as a funny corpse?”  </p><p>Nathan glared at him. “You don’t need to snitch. I’ll work the case.”</p><p>“Right,” Duke said. “I can work with that.”</p><p>Nathan didn’t mention the ways it benefitted him. Duke could probably guess, and even if he couldn’t, none of them would hurt him. Duke would lose his competition; Nathan would have something to do at work; it was a win for everyone.</p><p>Except their competition, but Nathan didn’t care. In fact, as Duke’s anger at the stolen job faded, Nathan found his growing. He had been looking forward to this job, and he felt jilted.  </p><p>Honestly, he couldn’t even keep pretending this was about the money. Sure, he’d had to get his house checked, and it was good to have money for the repairs—which he still hadn’t scheduled—but he knew this was about something else.</p><p>It was about the feeling. Knowing he was taking something for himself, knowing that he was getting away with it, right under his father’s nose. This trip hadn’t given him that.</p><p>He wondered if arresting their competitor would.</p><p>It was motivation enough that when he and Duke got back to Haven, he headed into work even though it was late afternoon on his day off.</p><p>Duke walked with him up to the sidewalk in front of the station before stopping as if there was a forcefield between him and the building.</p><p>“You sure about this?” Duke asked.</p><p>Nathan laughed. “Duke, it’s my job.”</p><p>He saw the way Duke’s guard went up and hated it, missing the unnoticed softness in his eyes when it vanished.</p><p>“You could make an enemy, Nate,” Duke said, and he sounded like he knew what that he was talking about. “Even if he never knows about… about what we do, he’ll want to go after the cop who put him away.”</p><p>“I’ll burn that bridge after I catch him,” Nathan said, with more confidence than he was feeling. Could he really make an arrest like this? It was a bit different than putting away the guy who held up the gas station with a bb gun.</p><p>He wanted to, though. He really wanted to be able to do this. For Duke, for the chief, for <em>himself. </em></p><p>Duke smiled. “Good luck.”</p><p>The smile stayed with him as he went into work, lingering in the back of his mind like a candle in a dark room.</p>
<hr/><p>Duke didn’t hear from Nathan for two days, and he told himself—very convincingly—that he wasn’t worried.</p><p><em>It’s my job, </em>Nathan had said, and it was. Duke had to keep reminding himself of that. That Nathan was a better cop than he was a smuggler, that he could do what he was promising to do.</p><p>Duke, on the other hand, would be a terrible cop, but he was a damn good criminal, which meant that he was even better than cops at finding criminals.</p><p>Or, in this case, letting them find him.</p><p>When he walked into the Whistling Bear, he scanned around as if he was expecting to see someone, then took a seat in a far corner. A few people looked at him, but it wasn’t the scene from a western he knew Nathan would picture. It was a sketchy gross bar on the edge of town, frequented by lowlifes like him. It was just a greasy dive, and certain types of people flocked to those like bees to roses.</p><p>If Haven had another major player, he’d probably show up here at some point.</p><p>Duke knew the area, knew the players in it, mostly older people from his father’s time who dabbled in both above-board and illegitimate work; exactly how Duke had been planning on establishing himself when he’d come back.</p><p>This guy, Duke suspected, wasn’t like that. New blood that Duke doubted would have any legal contracts in place. In a place like Haven, reputation was everything, and the only thing worse than having a bad one, was not having one at all.</p><p>The bartender, a massive bald man of indeterminate old age, known mysteriously as Red, crossed the room and set a bottle of beer in front of Duke.</p><p>“I didn’t order anything,” Duke said. “I’m waiting for someone.”</p><p>Red shrugged. “Guy at the end of the bar told me to give this to you.”</p><p>“There’s no one at the end of the bar,” Duke pointed out, gesturing to the vacant seat.</p><p>Again, Red shrugged. “He left.”</p><p>Duke hated this kind of game. He doubted that he was being flirted with—this wasn’t the bar he went to when he was in the mood for that—but wasn’t about to walk out to the parking lot to what could be an ambush.</p><p>“If he wanted to talk, he’d have stuck around,” Duke said with a shrug of his own, but Red had already walked way.</p><p>Duke looked at the label and tilted his head. Duke knew his alcohol, especially imports, and this one wasn’t distributed in North America. He set it down.</p><p>And then he stood up and walked out of the bar.</p><p>There was a man waiting for him. His eyes were sharp, and so was his jaw. He would fit in with the locals, Duke thought; he was tall and broad-shouldered with a natural expression that said, ‘don’t fuck with me’.</p><p>“Did you like the beer?” He asked.</p><p>“Prefer something lighter,” Duke said, guarded and casual.</p><p>“In this weather?” The man laughed but his eyes were steely and calculating, never fully squinting as if he were afraid it would make him vulnerable.</p><p>“You want something?” Duke asked, already tired of the game.</p><p>The man’s smile widened. “You know, I heard that like to get right to the point.”</p><p>“What do you want?” Duke asked again, forgetting to sound casual. He had a knife in his pocket, and something about this interaction was making him want to reach for it.</p><p>The man stood, and Duke stepped back, assuming a defensive position on instinct, ready to fight. </p><p>The man only laughed again and held out his hand. “John McGuinness. I’ve heard good things, Duke—can I call you Duke?”</p><p>“Still missing the part where you get to the point.”</p><p>“You’re funny. Anyone ever told you that? That you’re funny?”</p><p>Duke said nothing. Generally the asshole-cracking-annoying-jokes schtick was his, and he started to get how Nathan felt all the time, now that it was being directed at him.</p><p>“Well, you are.” He said after a moment, “Anyway, I hear you have a decent operation around here, or the start of one.”</p><p>“I assume you’re the new kid?” Duke asked.</p><p>McGuinness laughed. “Guess you could say that. I got to town recently, and I’ve done okay, but I could use a hand with the… well let’s call them locals. They don’t trust me.”</p><p>“How sad.”</p><p>“You sound real broken up,” McGuiness. “Anyway, you’ve been around. I hear you’re from here. You’d be able to help with my little trust issue.”</p><p>“Why would I do that?” Duke asked.</p><p>“Don’t make me say it,” McGuinness said.</p><p>Duke waited, figuring he’d either say whatever it was or leave, and not especially caring which one.  </p><p>“This town isn’t big enough for the two of us,” McGuinness said. “I’m too old for that kind of competition—”</p><p>“The cops are already onto you,” Duke said. “I’m too old for that kind of heat.”</p><p>McGuinness laughed. “The cops in this town couldn’t find their own assholes with both hands and a flashlight.”</p><p>A wave of defensiveness rushed over Duke so fast that he almost didn’t stop himself before he defended—of all fucking things—Haven PD.</p><p>He knew, deep down, that what he was really defending was Nathan, who was too stubbornly loyal to do anything other than his best at whatever he was doing, and therefore was probably actually a pretty good cop.</p><p>“The chief of police can go fuck himself,” Duke said, which was both the agreement McGuinness was looking for and the appeasement the defend-Nathan instinct needed. “But I’m not looking to get arrested.”</p><p>“Neither am I,” McGuinness assured him. “We can help each other. You get me in with some of the local action, and I’ll let you in on my… bigger game.”</p><p>“What are you offering?” Duke asked.</p><p>“Seventy-thirty on jobs I get—”<br/>
“And seventy thirty on the ones I get?” Duke asked, almost laughing as McGuinness opened his mouth to argue. “Sixty-forty to the finder or no deal.”</p><p>It was strangely similar to the conversation he’d had with Nathan, except how much Duke didn’t want to give this guy a single cent, didn’t want him to have a single job in Haven.</p><p>It was tempting just to remind the guy that no one in Haven cared whether he lived or died, so he should watch his step.</p><p>“Deal,” McGuinness said, and Duke got the feeling that he’d walked right into a trap. “I have a job in the next couple days; could use a boat.” </p><p>“I don’t have plans,” Duke said. Briefly, he thought of Nathan, the slight smile on his face as he’d walked into the station the last time he’d seen him. The way his hair looked when he’d been sitting on deck for too long and the wind managed to push it up off his forehead.</p><p>The way the ever-present tension seemed to roll off his shoulders the further they got from Haven, and the way his eyes were the color of the horizon.</p><p>He ignored the itching feeling that made him wonder why McGuinness didn’t have a boat. He’d have needed one for the last couple of jobs he’d run, the ones that had started the rumors around town.  “What’s the job?”</p><p>McGuinness smiled. He didn’t say, instead he reached into his pocket and held out a check.</p><p>Duke unfolded it, masking his irritation at the drama of it all.</p><p>Then he looked at the number and could barely keep his expression neutral at the frankly staggering number written on it.</p><p>“Interested?” McGuinness asked, his smile slow and distinctly crocodilian. </p><p>And Duke, still a little dumbstruck, nodded.</p>
<hr/><p>The smuggler was active. He must be new to the area, because he hadn’t picked up on the rotation schedule around the harbor yet, but they hadn’t managed to catch him.</p><p>Nathan had narrowed down a few different jobs of his, and had interrogated a couple people who liked their clean legal record better than their untaxed imported goods who had turned almost immediately.</p><p>They all said the same thing. John McGuinness knew people who knew people. If you wanted something; he could get it.</p><p>Tall, big, brown hair, roughly Nathan’s age. The sketch artist had handed him the most nondescript portrait he’d ever seen, but at least he had something. A name, a face; even the chief had—reluctantly—pointed out that it was better than the nothing they’d had last week.</p><p>It wasn’t exactly a statement of pride or gratitude, but it was more than Nathan had been expecting.</p><p>They had his name, all they needed now was evidence that didn’t involve the usual small-town hearsay. For that, Nathan knew it would be more of a waiting game. It bothered him—patience wasn’t his strength—but he could deal with it for tonight.</p><p>He stopped by a liquor store and bought a slightly more expensive bottle than usual, pretending that he intended to take it home, but never really entertaining the thought before he parked by the marina and headed for Duke’s slip.</p><p>Duke’s empty slip.</p><p>He wasn’t sure exactly how to categorize the strange, sharp twist in his stomach, or the way that his smile fell. He hadn’t even noticed that he’d been smiling. He wasn’t exactly mad, or sad, or disappointed. Just… oddly lost. Drifting out to sea on the wreckage of his plans for the evening.</p><p><em>Where is he? </em>Nathan wondered. And then, immediately after. <em>Why didn’t he take me? </em></p><p>Because it had to be a job. It had to be. Otherwise, he would have driven, not bothered with the laborious process of getting the Rouge out to sea.</p><p>Jealousy. It took him almost an embarrassingly long time to recognize it. Anger followed, belated but sharp and comforting, so much better than the twinge of melancholy that he was forcing to the background.</p><p>Duke had gone out on a job, and he’d left Nathan behind.</p><p><em>Left you behind again, </em>A high, mocking voice pointed out. <em>When will he be back? A month? A year? Ten more years? </em></p><p>Nathan stormed away from the dock, returned to his car and drove carefully, so carefully, back to his house.</p><p>He parked, walked inside, sat at the table.</p><p>Opened the whiskey and took a long sip. Too long. He ended up coughing, which helped. The whiskey tasted like it had all those years ago, when he’d woken up after that night and stolen it from the chief’s liquor cabinet.</p><p>
  <em>Let’s go, Nate. Right now. Let’s go tonight. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>We can’t just—</em>
</p><p>Duke had almost convinced him. Almost.</p><p>But then something had stopped him. An anchor chained to his foot and this town, holding him here while Duke boarded a boat.</p><p><em>Where did you go? </em>He’d asked Duke that, at Mac’s, and Duke had told him all the places he’d visited, and Nathan hadn’t asked <em>where did you go that night? </em></p><p>It couldn’t have been a glamorous story, so of course Duke hadn’t told it.</p><p><em>Where did you go? </em>He thought again as he took another sip and realized that a fourth of the bottle was gone. When had that happened? He didn’t remember. He didn’t care.</p><p>He drank more and the whiskey tasted like his own bitterness.</p><p>Dawn came with a dull ache, hidden behind thick rainclouds that matched Nathan’s mood as he got to work.</p><p>He traced McGuinness’s priors, looked for old partners and reached out to the New Hampshire police department that had almost arrested him for drug trafficking, but hadn’t managed to make it stick after the witness hadn’t shown up to make the statement that would have put him away.</p><p>The only thing they had to offer was spoken casually, tacked on towards the end of the conversation.</p><p>“No one’s heard from his old partner in a while. We hoped we could flip him, but Carrey’s off the grid.”</p><p>“How off the grid?” Nathan asked, something scratched at the door in the back of his mind, not quite a full thought, but an awareness that there might be one.</p><p>The detective grunted noncommittally. “No one’s heard from him in months.”</p><p>“How many months?”</p><p>The thought barged through the door as soon as the detective answered him. Two.</p><p>Two months.</p><p>Just a little less time than Duke had been in town. Almost exactly as long as the rumors had been circling that there was an active smuggler in Haven.</p><p>The idea took shape slowly and then altogether.</p><p>“Could he be dead?” The words escaped Nathan on a breath.</p><p>“Could be. No one to report him missing.”</p><p>“Thanks,” Nathan said absently, and hung up the phone without waiting for an answer.</p><p>It made so much sense. Too much sense.</p><p>McGuinness’s partner who’d nearly sold him out. Duke’s need for a new partner. His empty slip.</p><p>Nathan wanted to reject the thought<em>. </em>It wasn’t... Duke had said he didn’t do that. He didn’t run guns or drugs, and that was what McGuinness did, almost exclusively.</p><p>It turned his stomach thinking about it. Maybe it was hypocritical, maybe Duke had sold him on the idea of him being some kind of noble thief, a rugged outlaw with his own rules. But if Duke had gotten involved with McGuinness…</p><p>McGuinness the kind of person who didn’t give second chances. The kind who got away with crimes that had strings of disappearances attached to them.</p><p>He was gripped with a kind of panic he couldn’t even process, to big and sharp to push away and bury the way he usually did.</p><p><em>If I arrest him first, </em>Nathan thought, and it was a cold, logical thought that brought him back to something like calm. <em>I could get Duke out. </em></p><p>It wasn’t a smart way to think about it, but it was the only thing that calmed the storm that broke out in his mind whenever he thought about Duke alone on a boat with a murderer. And Nathan wasn’t rescuing Duke from anything; Duke was a goddamn adult who made his own choices—</p><p>
  <em>Duke makes bad choices sometimes. </em>
</p><p>Nathan paced. He knew it wouldn’t be simple; if he caught McGuinness and Duke was involved—and Nathan wasn’t in denial enough to believe Duke <em>wasn’t</em> involved—Duke would go down with him.</p><p>Duke was entirely too stubborn to flip on his partner. Nathan could picture him, smug and silent in an interrogation room, letting Nathan throw tactic after tactic at him and never flinching for a minute.</p><p>He hated how much the mental image ached. Hated that he knew Duke would win whatever game that was, hated that his cheeks heated, that his drafty house felt a little too warm while he pictured the way Duke would smile at him like he held all the cards, like he had something special and he wasn’t going to share it with Nathan.</p><p>He sat heavily and thought about the money he’d made on the jobs with Duke. He thought about Duke’s boat and how cozy it was. He thought about drinking on the deck and looking at stars and laughing and letting the tension in his shoulders fall away for a second.</p><p>He thought about the new blanket on his cot.</p><p>The decision was already made, had been made from the moment he’d put the pieces together. He was going to catch McGuinness. He would get Duke out of this, and find a way to cover for him, whatever it took.</p><p>The next day, when the chief asked for an update on McGuinness, Nathan said, “I got nothing.”</p><p>Somehow, his father’s disappointment stung a little less than he was used to.</p>
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